Ceasefire – fat chance – Mark!!

At least 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike in the Gaza town of Zawayda, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Saturday, as a Hamas official dismissed ceasefire optimism as an “illusion”.Child in Gaza diagnosed with polio

Photo shows A close-up of a man with grey hair wearing a dark suit and red tie.

The UN is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza so it can launch a polio vaccination campaign following a confirmed case of the disease there.

The senior Hamas official on Saturday dismissed optimistic talk by US President Joe Biden that a Gaza truce was nearer after negotiations in the Gulf emirate of Qatar.

“To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.

“We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”

He was responding to Mr Biden’s comment on Friday that “we are closer than we have ever been” to a ceasefire deal.

Mr Biden spoke after two days of talks in Qatar where Washington tried to bridge differences between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which have been at war for more than 10 months in the Gaza Strip.

Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.

But the stakes have risen significantly since the late July killings in quick succession of Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

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www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-17/israeli-strikes-kill-25-across-central-gaza-and-lebanon/104238372