CAIRO, Oct 27 (Reuters/AFP): Israeli military strikes killed at least 36 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, most of them in the north of the enclave, Palestinian health officials said, as efforts to secure a ceasefire in the more than year-long war resumed in Qatar.
The directors of the CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence agency will meet with Qatar's prime minister on Sunday in Doha, an official briefed on the talks told Reuters.
The negotiations will seek a short-term ceasefire and the release of some hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Israel's release of Palestinian prisoners, the official said.
The talks aim to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a halt in fighting for less than a month in the hope it would lead to a more permanent ceasefire.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have been leading negotiations to bring an end to the war, which broke out after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
The death toll from Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza is approaching 43,000, with the densely populated enclave in ruins.
It was not clear if Egyptian officials were also joining the talks on Sunday.
At least 34 of those killed on Sunday were in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have returned to root out Hamas fighters who it says have regrouped there.
Meanwhile, the death toll from an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday on a residential district in the nearby town of Beit Lahiya rose to 40, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said.
Meanwhile, Iran warned on Saturday it would defend itself after Israeli air strikes killed at least four soldiers and further stoked fears of a full-scale war in the Middle East.
Israel warned Iran would "pay a heavy price" if it responded to the strikes, and the United States, Germany and Britain demanded Tehran not escalate the conflict further.
US President Joe Biden said he hoped "this is the end" after the pre-dawn Israeli strikes, noting that "it looks like they didn't hit anything other than military targets".
Biden had urged Israel to spare nuclear and oil facilities in its retaliatory strikes and the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that no nuclear sites were hit.
The European Union called for all parties to exercise utmost restraint to avoid an "uncontrollable escalation".
Other countries, including many of Iran's neighbours, condemned Israel's strikes and some, such as Russia, urged both sides to show restraint and avoid what Moscow dubbed a "catastrophic scenario".
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