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DOHA: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.

The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages.

In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Younis in the south.

One strike on a tent in Khan Younis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.

Belal Al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death.”

AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.

Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“Gaza, we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4.

A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.

In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors.

But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied media reports that any meeting between the two was on the agenda.

In Israel, Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire when a deal for a temporary truce is agreed and only when Hamas lays down its weapons.

But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and with public frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostages and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.

Politically, his fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but Netanyahu is seen as beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.

He also faces a backlash over the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house displaced Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described the proposed facility as a “concentration camp” and Israel’s own security establishment is reported to be unhappy at the plan.

Israeli media said the costs were discussed at a security cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office on Sunday night, just hours before his latest court appearance in a long-running corruption trial on Monday.

Hamas’s attacks on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of which 49 are still being held, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,026 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

DAMASCUS: Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias there.
Dozens of people have been killed in the fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province. Government security forces that were sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry has said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured in that fighting.
Dozens of people have been killed in fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province, where government security forces sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor reported at least 50 dead, including two children and six members of the security forces.
Clashes initially broke out between armed groups from the Druze religious minority and Sunni Bedouin clans, the observatory said, with some members of the government security forces “actively participating” in support of the Bedouins.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Noureddine Al-Baba told the state-run state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV that government forces entered Sweida in the early morning to restore order.
“Some clashes occurred with outlawed armed groups, but our forces are doing their best to prevent any civilian casualties,” he said.
The observatory said the clashes started after a series of kidnappings between both groups, which began when members of a Bedouin tribe in the area set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a young Druze man.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the observatory, said the conflict started with the kidnapping and robbery of a Druze vegetable seller, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings.
Syria’s defense and interior ministries were deploying personnel to the area to attempt to restore order.
The Interior Ministry described the situation as a dangerous escalation that “comes in the absence of the relevant official institutions, which has led to an exacerbation of the state of chaos, the deterioration of the security situation, and the inability of the local community to contain the situation despite repeated calls for calm.”
Factions from the Druze minority have been suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus after former President Bashar Assad fled the country during a rebel offensive led by Sunni Islamist insurgent groups in December. Earlier this year, Druze groups in Sweida clashed with security forces from the new government.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.
The Druze developed their own militias during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. Since Assad’s fall, different Druze factions have been at odds over whether to integrate with the new government and armed forces.