Hamas says 'ready for ceasefire' as Israel presses Gaza campaign

JERUSALEM - A senior Hamas official on Friday said the group is "ready for a ceasefire" in Gaza, urging US President-elect Donald Trump to "pressure" Israel as it continued to pound the Palestinian territory.

It comes nearly a week after Qatar, which hosts much of the Palestinian group's political bureau, announced it was suspending its role as a mediator in the war and urging all parties to show "seriousness".

"Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip if a ceasefire proposal is presented and on the condition that it is respected" by Israel, Doha-based Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim told AFP.

"We call on the US administration and Trump to pressure the Israeli government to end the aggression."

On Saturday, Qatar announced it was suspending its role as a mediator in indirect talks towards a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Gaza war that has ground on for more than a year.

"Qatar would resume those efforts... when the parties show their willingness and seriousness," Doha's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said in a statement.

Friday's announcement by Hamas came as Israel continued to strike Gaza, with residents of the central city of Deir el-Balah searching through the rubble of their destroyed homes after overnight strikes.

"I woke up to the bombing at 2:30 am and was surprised by the rubble and glass falling on me and my children," said Mohamed Baraka, one of the residents, adding that the strike "resulted in three martyrs and 15 injuries".

"Put an end to this war... because there are innocent people who are losing defenceless children who have nothing to do with this," he said.

HOSTAGE VIDEO

The war erupted with Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 43,764 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Militants also kidnapped 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.

Earlier Friday, the Hamas-allied militant group Islamic Jihad released a new clip of Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov, after issuing a first video earlier this week.

Trupanov, 29, is a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was abducted with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called for the release of Trupanov and another hostage, Maxim Herkin, in comments made before the release of the latest clip.

Fears surged over the fate of the hostages after Qatar announced its withdrawal from mediating talks - the latest blow in a protracted negotiation process that has hit repeated impasses.

LEBANON STRIKES

Israel on Friday also continued to strike Lebanon, where it intensified in September its air offensive and later sent in ground troops following a year of low-intensity cross-border exchanges with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

A building in Beirut's southern suburbs collapsed in a gigantic cloud of smoke and dust, an AFP photographer reported, as two strikes attributed to Israel hit the Hezbollah bastion.

A series of images from the strike captures a falling projectile slamming into the lower floors of the building, which erupt in a huge fireball, causing the structure to collapse.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported a "heavy raid carried out by aircraft of the Israeli enemy" in the Ghobeiri area of southern Beirut.

It said the raid had been preceded by two missile strikes on the same target by an Israeli drone.

The strikes followed a call by the Israeli military to evacuate the area. The evacuation call posted on X by Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to leave, warning of imminent strikes.

"All residents in the southern suburbs, specifically ... in the Ghobeiri area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah," Adraee said in an Arabic-language post on X.

"For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately."

Later in the morning, a second strike hit the Bourj al-Barajneh area of the southern suburbs, an AFP journalist reported.

NNA said two missiles had been fired by an "enemy aircraft".

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.