Egypt offers proposal to get Israel-Hamas ceasefire back on track

Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli , in return for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and a weekslong pause in the fighting, an Egyptian official said. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

A Hamas official said the group had “responded positively” to the proposal, without elaborating.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the closed-door talks.

Israel ended the existing ceasefire last week by launching a surprise wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians. That came after Hamas rejected Israeli-backed proposals to change the agreement in order to free more hostages before talks on a lasting ceasefire, which were supposed to begin in early February.

Hamas has said it will only free the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

— Samy Magdy

US surgeon in Gaza says most patients hurt in Israeli attack on hospital had been wounded in earlier strikes An American trauma surgeon working in Gaza says most of the patients injured in an Israeli attack on the largest hospital in southern Gaza had been previously wounded when Israel resumed airstrikes last week.

Californian surgeon Feroze Sidhwa, who is working with the medical charity MedGlobal, said Monday he had been in the intensive care unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis when an airstrike hit surgical wards on Sunday.

Most of the injured had been recovering from wounds suffered in airstrikes last week when Israel resumed the war, he said.

“They were already trauma patients and now they’ve been traumatized for a second time,” Sidhwa, who was raised in Flint, Mich., told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Sidhwa said he had operated on a man and boy days before who died in the attack.