The Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah continued to exchange heavy fire overnight Thursday into Friday, while an Egyptian delegation is expected in Israel as the Israeli government reportedly prepares to new proposal for a ceasefire and release of some hostages.

The Israeli military said it had fired “two anti-tank missiles” from Lebanon at Israel overnight, adding that they hit the points from which they were launched with the artillery.

Alongside, planes bombed Hezbollah “infrastructure”. in the Kfarsumba sector, they added.

For its part, Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite movement supported by Iran, an ally of Hamas, claimed responsibility for fire that “hit” Israeli forces on the border of the two states.

The day before Wednesday, the Israeli army announced that it has begun to carry out an “offensive operation” in southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah is launching strikes against it, while it is shelling its positions.

At the same time, Israel continues its preparations for a large-scale ground operation in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where the war is about to complete seven months.

Destruction or liberation

Many foreign capitals and humanitarian organizations fear a bloodbath in Rafah, where between one and a million and a half Palestinians displaced, many more than once, by hostilities are crammed into makeshift camps.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he keeps saying that the invasion of Rafah is necessary to “defeat” Hamas and to free the few less than a hundred hostages who are believed to be still alive in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli government spokesman David Menser said yesterday that the war cabinet had met to “discuss how to destroy the last ranks of Hamas”.

However, according to Israeli media, the war government also discussed new proposal to declare a temporary ceasefire and the release of some hostages ahead of a visit later today by a delegation from Egypt, a country mediating the indirect negotiations, as well as Qatar and the US.

According to the Walla website, which cited an unnamed Israeli official, the talks were more specifically about a proposal to initially release 20 hostages on “humanitarian” grounds.

A Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, assured AFP from Qatar that the attack on Rafah would not allow Israel to achieve any of the goals it “wants”, namely to “eliminate” Hamas or release and to “go back to their homes” hostages.

“Deal Now”

Yesterday Thursday relatives of hostages demonstrated once again in Tel Aviv to pressure the government to secure their release.

Some had their hands tied, their mouths covered with plasters that read “202” (the number of days since October 7), others held placards with slogans such as “hostage deal now”.

Hamas released a video on Telegram on Wednesday showing a hostage, alone on camera, saying his name is Hers Goldberg Paulin, 23, and that he was abducted at the Nova music festival.

The American-Israeli accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his government of “abandoning” the hostages.

A section of the Israeli press took the video as an attempt to intensify the pressure on the Israeli government in the indirect negotiations and estimated that the hostage was expressed due to coercion.

The leaders of 18 countries, including the US, France, Britain and Brazil, yesterday called on Hamas to proceed with the “immediate release of all hostages”. “The agreement on the table for the release of the hostages would allow for an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” according to the text they co-signed.

The armed conflict erupted on October 7, when Hamas’s military arm launched an unprecedented raid on southern areas of the Israeli territory based in the Gaza Strip, killing 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally by AFP based on official Israeli data.

Another 250-plus people were kidnapped, of whom 129 remain hostages in the Palestinian enclave — but at least 34 are believed to have been killed, according to Israeli sources.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which the US and EU label a “terrorist” organization, and its wide-ranging military operations have killed at least 34,305 people, mostly in the Gaza Strip. women and children, according to the numbers of the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Islamic Movement.

“fails”

On the night of Thursday to Friday, eyewitnesses spoke of new shelling in the Gaza Strip, mainly in the south, in the sector where Rafah is located. Survivors were yesterday trying to collect their personal belongings and other items in the ruins after airstrikes.

“Enough of this destruction, enough of this war. Enough of the blood being spilled — of children, women, the elderly, unarmed civilians (…) it’s failing (…) Let the world live,” said one of them, Samir Daban, amid the rubble.

As the besieged enclave’s 2.4 million residents face a humanitarian disaster, the US military has begun building a temporary port and jetty off the coast of the Gaza Strip so that military or civilian ships can deliver aid shipments there.

Washington had announced in early March that it would proceed with the construction of this artificial port, amid the many, sometimes insurmountable, difficulties in delivering international humanitarian aid via land routes from Egypt, particularly due to Israel’s extremely strict controls.

These developments are recorded as a protest movement against the war in the Gaza Strip is growing in the US.

From Los Angeles to Atlanta, from Austin to Boston, the pro-Palestine student movement in America seems to be growing larger by the hour, more than a week after it erupted, causing many – often diametrically opposed – reactions on campus Columbia, New York.