PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, Aug 23: A Hamas official on Friday accused Israel's prime minister of refusing to agree to a final truce accord for Gaza, where the presence of Israeli troops on the Egyptian border remained a major sticking point.
An Israeli team was in Cairo "negotiating to advance a hostage (release) agreement", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP late on Thursday.
But Hamas representatives were not taking part and an official from the Islamist movement, Hossam Badran, told AFP on Friday that Netanyahu's insistence that troops remain on the Philadelphi border strip reflects "his refusal to reach a final agreement".
Egypt with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States have for months tried to reach a deal to end more than 10 months of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken visited the region this week to emphasise the urgency of an agreement.
Witnesses on Friday reported combat in the territory's north, heavy shelling in the centre, and tank fire in the far south near Rafah city.
The United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians have been on the move again this week from Deir el-Balah and the southern city of Khan Yunis after Israeli military evacuation orders, which precede military operations.
The war has displaced about 90 percent of Gaza's population, often multiple times, leaving them deprived of shelter, clean water and other essentials as disease spreads, the UN says.
"Civilians are exhausted and terrified, running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight," Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said late Thursday.
"This cannot continue," he said.
Israel's military on Friday said that over the past day troops had "eliminated dozens" of militants around Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.
In April the military had pulled troops out of Khan Yunis after months of devastating fighting, yet has found itself having to resume operations there, leaving civilians feeling they have nowhere to turn.
"This is no way to live," said Haitham Abdelaal.
Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,265 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most dead are women and children.
Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.
The Israeli military recovered the remains of six hostages from a tunnel in the Khan Yunis area this week, and on Thursday said bullets had been found in their bodies, indicating they had been shot.
An investigation continues into the circumstances of their deaths, a military spokesman said. —AFP
