Bombay Durpun - Israel kills top Palestinian militant as Gaza truce talks stumble

Fatah, the Palestinian movement based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Khalil Maqdah was killed in a strike near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

The Israeli military said it targeted the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing. It accused them both of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank and collaborating with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

In response, the slain militant's Fatah movement, which is headed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and rivals the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas, accused Israel of bidding to trigger a wider regional war.

Maqdah's killing marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement following the Gaza war.

The "assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region," Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told AFP in Ramallah.

It came only hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Blinken appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-backed truce proposal, while also entering into a public spat with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Palestinian territory.

"Time is of the essence," Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Qatar, Egypt and Israel on his ninth regional tour seeking to halt the Gaza war.

"This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line," he said of the truce proposal.

The United States has presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, pressed Hamas to return to talks this week in Cairo.

But a day after Blinken said US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.

Netanyahu insisted Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli forces seized from Hamas, whom Israel says relies on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.

- Sticking point -

Blinken said Israel had already agreed on the "schedule and location" of troop withdrawals from Gaza.

Since the conflict began, it was made "very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel", Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu's remarks.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Netanyahu's "maximalist statements" unhelpful for reaching a truce.

Blinken acknowledged differences and called for "maximum flexibility" from both Israel and Hamas.

Egypt, the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel, has been infuriated by the border takeover.

Hamas said it was "keen to reach a ceasefire" but protested "new conditions" from Israel in the latest US proposal.

On the ground, Gaza was again rocked by air strikes, AFP reporters, first responders and witnesses said.

The Israeli military said it struck about 30 targets throughout Gaza and that troops "eliminated dozens" of militants.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said death appeared to be the "only certainty" for Gaza's 2.4 million people, with no way to escape Israel's bombardment.

"Absolutely nowhere is safe," said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge. "People... feel like they're being chased around in circles.

"Death seems to be the only certainty," she told AFPTV.

As tensions escalated, Lebanon's health ministry said earlier Israeli strikes in the country's east killed one person and wounded 20, hours after four were killed in the south.

Cross-border skirmishes have taken place almost daily between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, but fears of a greater crisis soared when Hamas's political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed on a visit to Tehran on July 31.

Iran has vowed retaliation, blaming Israel for the assassination, but has held off so far, with the United States sending additional forces and warning a wider war could destroy prospects for a Gaza ceasefire.

Elsewhere in the region, a merchant vessel was struck by three projectiles off Yemen after exchanging fire with two boats, British maritime security agency UKMTO said.

There was no immediate claim for the attack, but it comes as Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi movement keeps up a campaign against international shipping that it says is in support of Gaza.

- Hostage appeal -

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in agreeing a deal to end fighting, free Israeli hostages and allow vital humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Netanyahu has faced public protests in Israel urging him to accept a truce, which would bring back hostages whose plight has plagued Israelis.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from tunnels in Gaza, some of whom were killed in its operations.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.

In a stark reminder of what's at stake for Netanyahu, a young Israeli woman symbolising the 251 hostages called for their swift return.

"Avinatan, my boyfriend, is still there, and we need to bring them back before it's going to be too late. We don't want to lose more people than we already lost," Noa Argamani said while visiting Japan.

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R.Altobelli--BD