Talks Over Gaza Ceasefire at Stalemate After Rafah Operation, Qatar PM Says 

A Palestinian boy looks out his tent in a Rafah displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy looks out his tent in a Rafah displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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Talks Over Gaza Ceasefire at Stalemate After Rafah Operation, Qatar PM Says 

A Palestinian boy looks out his tent in a Rafah displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy looks out his tent in a Rafah displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

Talks over a ceasefire in Gaza have reached a stalemate due to Israel's operations in Rafah, Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Tuesday.

Israeli operations in Rafah, which started this month, have closed a main crossing point for aid from the border with Egypt a move humanitarian groups say has worsened an already dire situation.

"Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately, things didn't move in the right direction and right now we are in a status of almost a stalemate. Of course, what happened with Rafah sent us backward," Sheikh Mohammed said at an economic forum in Doha.

Sheikh Mohammed, whose country has mediated heavily between Palestinian group Hamas and Israel throughout the seven-month conflict, said Qatar would keep working to resolve the situation.

"We make it very clear for everyone: our job is limited to our mediation," he said. "That's what we will do, that what we will continue to do."

Sheikh Mohammed said the fundamental difference between the two parties was over the release of hostages and ending the war.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 252 others, of whom 133 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

"There is one party that wants to end the war and then talk about the hostages and there is another party who wants the hostages and wants to continue the war. As long as there is not any commonality between those two things it won't get us to a result," Sheikh Mohammed said.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.