Israelis in Cairo for Gaza talks but disputes over border troops linger

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, Osama 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 U.S. 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 Younis 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 U.N. says.

- 'No way to live' -

"Civilians are exhausted and terrified, running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight," Muhannad Hadi, the U.N. 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 Younis and Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.

In April the military had pulled troops out of Khan Younis 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 U.N. 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 Younis 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.

- 'Now is the time' -

Diplomatic efforts to reach a Gaza truce and avert a wider war intensified following the killings of two senior Iran-backed militants that sparked threats of reprisals from Tehran and its allies, who blamed Israel.

Accepting her Democratic party's presidential nomination in Chicago, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said "now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done".

The basis of talks has been a framework which U.S. President Joe Biden outlined in late May, and which he described as an Israeli proposal.

The three-phase plan would initially see hostages exchanged for Palestinians in Israeli jails during what Biden called a "full and complete ceasefire" lasting six weeks.

Israeli forces would withdraw from "all populated areas of Gaza", under the plan.

During his regional tour, Blinken said Netanyahu had accepted a U.S. "bridging proposal" for a truce that "is very clear on the schedule and the locations" of the Israeli withdrawal.

Badran, the Hamas official, on Friday reiterated that Hamas "accepted the Biden plan" originally outlined and said Washington must pressure Netanyahu for a ceasefire.

Badran said Hamas will accept "nothing less than the withdrawal of occupation forces, Philadelphi included."

The office of Netanyahu, whose hard-right coalition relies on the support of members opposed to a truce, rejected as "incorrect" media reports that "Netanyahu has agreed that Israel will withdraw" from the Philadelphi corridor.

The prime minister sees control of the strip along the Egyptian border as necessary to prevent Hamas rearming.

- Red Sea rescue -

Netanyahu faces regular protests by hostage supporters demanding a deal to bring home the captives.

In Tel Aviv on Friday, Israelis sounded pessimistic over prospects of an agreement.

"It's been postponed so many times," said Ran Sadeh, 57.

He said a deal would also help settle tensions on Israel's northern border, where Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire.

Another Iran-backed group acting in support of Hamas, Yemen's Houthi rebels, have for months been attacking ships in surrounding waters vital to world trade.

The Philippines on Friday urged its mariners to avoid the Red Sea, after sailors from a European Union naval mission rescued the largely Filipino crew of an oil tanker attacked by Houthis in the Red Sea.

U.S. forces destroyed two Houthi drones over the Red Sea and another drone in a rebel-held area of Yemen, Central Command said on Thursday.