CAIRO: Qatari, U.S. and Egyptian leaders called on Hamas and Israel to resume urgent talks on Thursday either in Cairo or Doha to bridge all remaining gaps in the proposed Gaza truce agreement and start executing it without any delay, the three nations said in a joint statement.  The statement added that it is the time to conclude a truce agreement and release captives and prisoners,” the statement maintained.

AFP reported that Israel has agreed to restart Gaza truce talks on Thursday at the demand of US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators as regional tensions skyrocket over the conflict.  Following a week-long break in November, US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators have endeavoured to secure a second ceasefire in the 10-month-old war. The new development comes following Hamas named Yahya Sinwar as its new leader, sparking fears the torturous talks have become even more and more difficult.

Iran’s acting minister for foreign affairs, Ali Bagheri, said that Israel had did “a strategic mistake” by killing Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran last week hours following the assassination of Hezbollah’s military commander Lebanon. Gaza’s civil defense agency stated that Israeli bombardment killed over 18 people in attacks on two schools on Thursday, as Iran accused Israel of wanting to spread conflict in the region.

Gaza Health Ministry said that Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 39,699 people. Palestine has sought an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for his call to starve two million people in Gaza to death. “This is an explicit admission of adopting and bragging regarding the policy of genocide,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said. Smotrich on Monday said that letting two million people in Gaza die from hunger might be “justified and moral.”