US believes Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term: Report

Officials in the United States believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper on Thursday cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them.

“No deal is imminent. I’m not sure it ever gets done,” one of the US officials told the newspaper.

The officials told the Journal there were two key obstacles to a deal: the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel must release in exchange for each captive held by Hamas, and the rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

In public, officials in Washington have stressed that they will continue to work for an agreement.

“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the Wall Street Journal report was published.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.

Washington has been working for months with mediators Qatar and Egypt to try and bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.

Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 saying that Israel had agreed to it. The US holds its presidential election on November 5 with Vice President Kamala Harris running against Republican Donald Trump.

The latest bloodshed began nearly a year ago when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 captive.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed territory has killed at least 41,272 Palestinians and injured 95,551. It has also led to the displacement of nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, a hunger crisis and a genocide case at the World Court.At least 26 palestinians were killed on Thursday-Friday during the last 24 hours in airstrikes by Israel.

The latest bloodshed began nearly a year ago when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 captive.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed territory has killed at least 41,272 Palestinians and injured 95,551. It has also led to the displacement of nearly the entire popAn Israeli attack on Gaza City’s Zeitoun area killed at least six people, Wafa reported. Another attack on the Sheikh Radwan area killed four.

The first phase of the polio vaccination campaign has ended in Gaza, according to the UN. However, “the spread of many other diseases remains a threat”, it said.

Israeli forces are conducting raids across the occupied West Bank, with clashes with Palestinian fighters reported in some areas.

According to Israeli Army Radio, an investigation by the Air Force has determined that attempts to intercept the missile launched by the Houthis towards Israel failed because “the missile was not completely destroyed in the air as required”.

An Israeli border police officer was stabbed by a Palestinian citizen of Israel near the Old City’s Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Israeli army says there is a “high probability” that an Israeli air raid in November last year was responsible for the deaths of three people held captive in Gaza.

The raid on the Palestinian town, southwest of Nablus, has led to clashes with local Palestinians, according to Wafa.

The dispute over whether the Houthis used a ballistic or hypersonic missile in their attack on Israel on Sunday is significant, according to David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

“The Houthis, Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, have all claimed to have developed hypersonic missiles. The standard for that is that it goes very fast … and that it can manoeuvre,” Des Roches told Al Jazeera.

“The speed itself is actually pretty easy to achieve. Most ballistic missiles have that ability, and this missile probably travelled fast, but the manoeuvrability is hard.”

If it were a true hypersonic, it would be very difficult to intercept, he added.

“This was intercepted. So I think what you have is the classic parabola trajectory of a ballistic missile, where instead of being intercepted up high, it was intercepted close to the objective.”The missile was likely an Iranian one “with a Houthi paint job on it”, he said.

“What we don’t know is, in the past, they’ve imported missiles in shipping containers that were cut into sections and welded them together. It could have been imported in sections.”

That’s according to the Wafa news agency, which says the information came from medical sources.The air attack hit a home in the district, which lies in the southeast of Gaza City.

That includes the four killed in the attack in Sheikh Radwan, in Gaza City.

A reminder that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October.First phase of polio vaccine campaign ends, threat of other diseases high: UN

The first phase of the polio vaccination campaign has ended in Gaza, according to the UN.

However, “the spread of many other diseases remains a threat amid unsanitary conditions”, the international body warned in a social media post.

“Piles of trash keep growing & sewage floods the streets. Greater access to aid for clean water & hygiene supplies is urgent.”