Gaza ceasefire hopes fade as Netanyahu rejects calls to halt Rafah offensive

 Netanyahu’s repeated rejection of calls to hold off on a Rafah ground offensive, and a vote by his cabinet that Israel will formally oppose international efforts at what it called the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state.

Diplomatic efforts led by Egypt, Qatar and the US are also stalling: on Sunday, Qatari officials acknowledged that indirect talks in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which restarted last week, had “hit an impasse”. Washington has also signalled it will veto this week’s expected new push for a UN security council resolution on a ceasefire.

The diplomatic impasse was met with dismay by the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants, where almost 29,000 people have been killed, 85% of the population displaced from their homes and one in four are starving, according to the UN.

The four-month-old war triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Of the remaining 130 hostages still in Gaza, about 30 are presumed dead, according to Israeli officials.

Airstrikes on Gaza City, Khan Younis and the strip’s southernmost border town of Rafah – Gaza’s last place of relative safety – killed at least 18 people overnight, according to local officials, including a family of seven, a relative, Sayed al-Afifi, told the Associated Press. The Israeli military blames Hamas for civilian casualties, saying it uses Gaza’s population as human shields.

Israel’s ground offensive continues to target the central town of Khan Younis, where Nasser hospital, previously the territory’s largest functioning healthcare facility, has gone offline after Israeli ground forces launched a raid on the premises on Thursday.