Netanyahu says fighting will continue as US and Arab states reportedly work on ceasefire deal

With calls growing in Israel for a deal that will include a ceasefire in return for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said the fighting will continue “for months until victory.”

His comments, in a Thursday night press conference, followed reports from a number of sources that Washington and moderate Arab states are formulating an initiative for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, as part of a larger deal under which Saudi Arabia will normalise ties with Israel if it agrees to take “irreversible steps” in favour of establishing an independent Palestinian state. NBC reported that the Biden administration is trying to lay the groundwork in anticipation of an eventual post-Netanyahu government.

“Those discussing a post-Netanyahu era are referring to one with a Palestinian state,” Mr Netanyahu said, warning that stopping the war before victory “will harm Israel’s security for generations”, and send a message of weakness to Israel’s enemies.

Fierce fighting continues in the southern city of Khan Younis. The coastal enclave has faced a near-total communications blackout for one week – the longest of the war so far – affecting telephones, mobile phones and internet services.

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More than 24,600 people have been killed according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. Israel says 1,200 people were killed on October 7th and 240 were kidnapped to Gaza when Hamas gunmen crossed into southern Israel.

After Palestinians in Khan Younis reported that Israeli troops entered a local cemetery and took bodies from it, the army on Thursday confirmed that corpses are taken from cemeteries when there is suspicion that they are those of Israeli hostages. According to the army, the bodies are returned to Gaza after they are determined not to be those of hostages and no positive identifications have been made to date.

[ Israel presses assault in southern Gaza as Jordan says field hospital badly damaged ]

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, reported that the population of Rafah on the Egyptian border has soared to 1.2 million from 300,000 before the war, as displaced Palestinians seek shelter in overcrowded camps and tents. Doctors in the city report that hepatitis C is spreading among children, adults and the elderly for the first time.

Israel lists 136 hostages still in Hamas captivity, of whom 107 are still believed to be alive. Thursday marked the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest of the hostages, who was seized with his parents and elder brother from kibbutz Nir Oz.

On Wednesday night, medicine was allowed into Gaza for the hostages, via Egypt, as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar, under which large amounts of medicine were also transferred to Gaza for local hospitals. Israel hoped the Red Cross would distribute the medicine but in the end, Hamas took charge and Israel said it was still waiting for proof that the medicine had reached the hostages.

The United States launched additional strikes early on Thursday targeting two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were being prepared to fire into the Red Sea and deemed “an imminent threat” to shipping and US Navy vessels in the region, the US military said.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby, said the latest strikes were similar to those on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden separately told reporters earlier on Thursday that air strikes would continue even if they may not be halting the Houthi attacks.

“Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they gonna continue? Yes,” Mr Biden said.

The latest US strikes came one day after the US returned the Yemen-based Houthi rebels to a list of terrorist groups.

The Houthi rebels’ supreme leader said attacks by his forces on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden will continue. “We will continue targeting ships linked to Israel,” Abdel-Malik al-Houthi said in an hour-long televised speech, and later added the Houthi operations would “also include American and British ships”. – Additional reporting: Reuters