Displaced Palestinians watch from a makeshift camp as shells fired from Israeli tanks hit an area near the Hamad residential complex in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday — AFP GAZA, Aug 18 (AFP/AP): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due in Israel on Sunday as mediators seek to cement a Gaza ceasefire deal, while a senior Hamas official dismissed "American diktats" in negotiations.
Making his ninth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war broke out with the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack, Blinken is expected to meet Israeli leaders before truce talks resume in Cairo in the coming days.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have said negotiations to clinch a ceasefire in the more than 10-month-old war were making progress, and US President Joe Biden said "we are closer than we have ever been".
But Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri undercut the cautious optimism, telling AFP that signs of progress after two days of talks in Doha were "an illusion".
"We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats," he said.
Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.
But the stakes have risen since the late July killings in quick succession of Iran-backed militant leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has deepened with a feared polio outbreak.
After mediators announced they had put forward a "bridging proposal" to close remaining gaps between the warring sides, Hamas said it rejected "new conditions" from Israel and called for a plan outlined by Biden in late May to be impleme
Israeli Gaza airstrike kills
18 members of a family
An Israel airstrike in Gaza killed at least 18 people, all from the same family, on Saturday, hours after mediators expressed optimism for an imminent cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas after 10 months of war.
A joint statement by mediators the United States, Egypt and Qatar after two days of talks said a proposal to bridge gaps was presented and they expect to work out implementation details next week in Cairo.
The mediation efforts aim to secure the release of scores of Israeli hostages and stop the fighting that has devastated Gaza, where the death toll has surpassed 40,000 and a possible polio outbreak is feared.
Talks are also meant to calm regional tensions that have threatened to explode into a wider war if Iran and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon attack Israel in retaliation for recent killings of militant leaders.
Saturday's airstrike hit a house and adjacent warehouse sheltering displaced people at the entrance to the town of Zawaida, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where casualties were taken. An Associated Press reporter there counted the dead.
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