By Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hamas said its negotiators arrived in Cairo on Saturday to hear about the latest round of Gaza ceasefire and hostage talks from mediators after the U.N. reported badly worsening humanitarian conditions, with malnutrition soaring and polio discovered.
Israeli military strikes across Gaza killed 50 people on Saturday, Palestinian health authorities said. Victims of fighting over the past 48 hours remain lying on roads where fighting continues or trapped under rubble, the authorities said.
Months of on-off talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough to end Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
Israeli negotiators were in Cairo on Thursday to meet mediators from the United States, which has presented a “bridging proposal” aimed at resolving continued disputes, focused on Israel’s presence in strategic areas of Gaza.
However there was no sign of any breakthrough on key sticking points, including Israel’s insistence that it must retain control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Hamas has accused Israel of going back on things it had previously agreed to in the talks, which Israel denies. The group says the United States is not mediating in good faith.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has locked horns with Israeli ceasefire negotiators over whether Israeli troops must remain all along the border between Gaza and Egypt, a person with knowledge of the talks said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began an unannounced visit to the Middle East on Saturday to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict, as the region braces for a threatened Iranian attack against Israel.
DISEASE SPREADING
Continuing the war will worsen the plight of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, nearly all of them homeless in tents or shelters among the ruins, with malnutrition rampant and disease spreading, and risk the lives of remaining Israeli hostages.
The Oct. 7 attack killed 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s Gaza campaign has killed more than 40,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.
U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said in a Friday update that the amount of food aid entering Gaza in July was one of the lowest since October, when Israeli imposed a full siege.
OCHA said that in July the number of children with acute malnutrition in northern Gaza was four times higher than in May, while in the more accessible south, where fighting is less severe, the number more than doubled.
The World Health Organisation said on Friday a 10-month-old baby had been paralysed with polio, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, raising fears of a wider outbreak given the lack of proper sanitation for people living in ruins.
More warfare also risks major new escalations, with Iran still weighing retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its territory last month.
Fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah since Oct. 7 has ramped up recently, including with Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon and into the Bekaa, and with more Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Enas Alashray and Adam Makary in Cairo and Emily Rose, James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Phil Stewart in Amman; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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