Sawt Falasteen - US, Qatar hope for Israel-Hamas truce within days

As a dire humanitarian crisis unfolds in the war-battered Gaza Strip, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA and the United States separately called to ensure aid reaches the many Palestinians in need.

In the protracted bid to broker a ceasefire nearly five months into the devastating war, Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been putting proposals to the parties.

Several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel may also be released under the deal, media reports suggest.

"My hope is by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire" but "we're not done yet", Biden said.

Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani -- whose country hosts Hamas's political leadership and helped broker a one-week truce in November -- met in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Doha was "hopeful, not necessarily optimistic, that we can announce something" before Thursday.

"We are going to push for a pause before the beginning of Ramadan", the Muslim fasting month which starts on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar, Ansari said.

"We are all aiming towards that target, but the situation is still fluid on the ground."

There has been huge international pressure for Israel to hold off on sending troops into Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that any truce would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah in Gaza's far south, which he said was necessary to achieve "total victory" over Hamas.

- 'Nothing but dust' -

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 29,878 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.

The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.

Cairo's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned that any assault on Rafah, a key entry point for aid on Gaza's border with Egypt, "would have catastrophic repercussions" across the region.

Ahead of the threatened ground incursion, the area has been hit repeatedly by Israeli air strikes.

Abu Khaled Zatmeh, whose nephews were killed in bombardment in Rafah, said the family was "preparing food and getting ready to eat when the strike occurred, and three floors collapsed suddenly".

"People began pulling out the martyrs, all of whom were my nephews," he told AFP.

He said there were "no more" basic supplies in the besieged territory, adding that "even if they allow people to return to the north, there are no houses left -- nothing but dust".

- 'War must continue' -

Netanyahu has faced increasing public pressure over the fate of the remaining hostages, and Israeli municipal elections on Tuesday could offer a gauge of the public mood.

Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel's far-right national security minister, said Netanyahu should not accept Hamas's "delusional requests" in negotiations, adding that "the war must continue", according to news website Ynet.

In Israel's commercial hub Tel Aviv, a small crowd gathered for an anti-war rally urging a ceasefire.

"I feel that there's nothing that justifies this vast killing of innocent people," said protester Michal Sapir, a 58-year-old musician and writer.

A Hamas source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said the proposed 42-day truce could potentially be "renewed".

Instead of a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza -- a demand rejected by Netanyahu -- the source said the military may leave "cities and populated areas", allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians.

"I have not eaten for two days," said Mahmud Khodr, a resident of Jabalia refugee camp in the north, where children roamed with empty pots in search of food.

"There is nothing to eat or drink."

- Aid 'under fire' -

Most aid trucks have been halted, but foreign armies have air dropped supplies including on Tuesday over Rafah and Gaza's main southern city Khan Yunis.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said aid convoys headed for northern Gaza "have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need".

The main UN aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said humanitarian relief entering Gaza has halved in February from the previous month, with the latest aid convoy allowed into the north on January 23.

Israeli officials say relief supplies have hit a logjam inside the territory.

The US Agency for International Development announced another $53 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, with its head Samantha Power saying aid "has to reach people in need".

Humanitarian workers on the ground "have to be protected", she said on a visit to Jordan.

Along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, which has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas ally Hezbollah, UN peacekeepers reported "an expansion and intensification of strikes".

As fierce hostilities continued Tuesday a day after a rare Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon, far from the border, UNIFIL urged deescalation to "leave space to a political and diplomatic solution".

Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in an overnight raid on the Faraa refugee camp.

Israeli police said forces shot dead a Palestinian suspect who had attempted "illegal entry" into the Jerusalem area through a breach in the West Bank barrier.

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H.Jarrar--SF-PST