13 more killed in latest airstrikes as new study shows death toll from Israel-Hamas war could be drastically undercounted.
Netanyahu reports progress on captive deal but offers no timeline
Netanyahu tells parliament that progress has been made on a deal to reach a ceasefire and free captives in Gaza, but he offers no timeline.
Aljazeera
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed at least 13 people over the last day as a cease-fire deal remained out of reach after hours of negotiations and a new study estimated the death toll in the enclave throughout the war was undercounted by almost 20,000.
In northern Gaza City, a strike killed seven people sheltering in a school. Six more were killed across Rafah, Deir al-Balah, and the Bureij camp for refugees, local medics reported.
Cease-fire still out of reach after hours of negotiations
Their deaths came as more than eight hours of negotiations between Israel and Hamas, with the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt as mediators, failed to turn up a deal that would stop the fighting and return the around 100 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, even as officials said it was closer than ever.
Hamas had not responded to the proposal because it was waiting for Israel to hand over maps showing how it would withdraw from the enclave, an official told Reuters.
President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the deal on Sunday – his National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN’s “State of the Union” a deal is “very, very close.”
With Donald Trump set to take office on Monday, his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, also met with Netanyahu the day before, prompting the Israeli leader to send the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency and other officials to Qatar to join the talks.
Over the course of the year-and-a-half-long war, sparked in 2023 when Hamas launched an Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis, negotiators often announced an imminent deal, only to see it fall through the cracks.
Palestinians said they hoped a deal to halt the brutal bombing on Gaza since the war began would come soon, although there was little left of their homes to which they would return.
“We are waiting for the ceasefire and the truce,” Amal Saleh, 54, who the war drove from his home in Gaza, told Reuters.
“May God complete it for us in goodness, bless us with peace, and allow us to return to our homes,” he said. “Even if the schools are bombed, destroyed, and ruined, we just want to know that we are finally living in peace.”
Study finds Gaza official death toll undercounted
Meanwhile, Gaza’s health ministry updated the death toll of Israel’s attacks to at least 46,707 killed and 110,265 wounded since the war began. But a new study from the Lancet estimated the actual death toll of the war in Gaza at 64,260, more than 40% higher than the official number.
The researchers compared data taken from hospital lists kept by the health ministry, an online survey sent out to residents, and obituaries posted on social media to arrive at the figure. Of 28,257 people with age and sex data available, 59% were women, children, and people 65 and older.
Contributing: Reuters
