Egypt calls for two-day truce as Israeli strikes escalate in Gaza

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has proposed a 48-hour truce in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the northern region of the Strip over the past month.

El-Sisi’s initiative, which includes a potential exchange of four Israeli captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, aims to open a pathway toward a longer-term ceasefire.

At a Cairo news conference on Sunday, el-Sisi stated that the two-day pause could allow for immediate negotiations to secure a more enduring peace, with further talks planned within the next 10 days. “The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in north Gaza is unbearable,” echoed United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres through his spokesman.

Efforts to mediate the conflict have resumed in Doha, where CIA and Mossad leaders are engaged in indirect talks. However, Israel and Hamas have yet to comment on the proposal. Egypt has been working alongside Qatar and the U.S. to broker a truce, though negotiations have stalled as Hamas continues to demand Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, a condition Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Meanwhile, the toll on Gaza’s civilian population is mounting. Al Jazeera reports that Sunday’s Israeli strikes killed at least 53 people, including three journalists, across Gaza’s north, while others were killed in separate incidents at the Nuseirat refugee camp and Shati refugee camp’s Asma School, which was housing displaced families.

Gaza’s Government Media Office confirmed five journalists were killed in recent attacks, including Saed Radwan of Al-Aqsa TV and Haneen Baroud from Al-Quds Foundation. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 131 journalists have been killed in Gaza since last October.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported the conditions in northern Gaza as “horrifying” with civilians “crying, feeling that they’ve been abandoned, asking for food, water, and medicine.”