\n Israel marked the second anniversary of the October 7 attack on Tuesday, as Hamas and Israeli negotiators held indirect talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza under a US-proposed peace plan.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two years ago to the day, at the close of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, Hamas-led militants launched the deadliest attack on Israel in the country's history, sparking a huge retaliatory offensive in Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n The attack shocked the world, with Palestinian fighters breaching the Gaza-Israel border, and storming southern Israeli communities and a desert music festival with gunfire, rockets and grenades.\n<\/p>\n
\n It resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.\n<\/p>\n
\n Militants also took 251 people hostage into Gaza, of whom 47 remain captive, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Tuesday, senior Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum called the October 7 attack a \"historic response\" to Israel's bid to \"eradicate the Palestinian cause\".\n<\/p>\n
\n He also said Hamas was working to \"surmount all obstacles\" to sealing a deal in Egypt.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two years on from the October 7 attack, global pressure to end the war has escalated massively, with much of Gaza flattened, a UN-declared famine unfolding and Israeli hostage families still longing for their loved ones' return.\n<\/p>\n
\n A UN probe last month accused Israel of genocide in Gaza while rights groups have accused Hamas of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the October 7 attack. Both sides reject the allegations.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last week, US President Donald Trump unveiled a 20-point peace plan calling for a ceasefire, the release of all the hostages, Hamas's disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n The plan received positive responses from both Israel and Hamas and prompted talks in Egypt, with negotiators beginning indirect discussions on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to two Palestinian sources close to the Hamas negotiating team, the talks were resuming on Tuesday in the Red Sea town of Sharm El-Sheikh.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Wednesday, Trump's special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will join the talks, according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The primary guarantee of success at this stage is US President Trump himself... even if it comes to a point to require him imposing a vision,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'She's with me' -\n<\/p>\n
\n In Israel, dozens of relatives and friends of those killed at the Nova music festival lit candles and held a minute's silence at the site of the attack, where militants killed more than 370 people and seized dozens of hostages.\n<\/p>\n
\n Orit Baron, whose daughter Yuval was killed at the festival with her fiance Moshe Shuva, told AFP that October 7 was a \"black\" day for her family.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Now it's two years. And I'm here to be with her, because this is the last time that she was alive,\" the 57-year-old mother said at the site of the attack, adding she felt \"that right now she's with me here\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Another ceremony was due in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, where weekly rallies have kept up calls for the captives' release.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Release the hostages, unconditionally and immediately,\" UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Put an end to the hostilities in Gaza, Israel and the region now. Stop making civilians pay with their lives and their futures.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Now, not tomorrow' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,160 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that over half of the dead are women and children.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I don't know when this war will end. My dream is for the war to end now, not tomorrow,\" said Abeer Abu Said, a 21-year-old in Gaza who lost seven family members in the war.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I don't trust anyone -- from the Israeli negotiators or even Hamas -- they all lie to us. Negotiations for the sake of negotiations, while we die every minute.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n In Egypt's resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, mediators were shuttling between Israeli and Hamas delegations under tight security.\n<\/p>\n
\n Egypt's Abdelatty said that negotiations were aimed at implementing a \"first phase\" of the agreement, \"to create conditions for the release of the hostages, the access for aid, and the release of Palestinian prisoners\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This, therefore, requires the redeployment of Israeli forces so that we can work to implement this phase,\" he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Trump has urged negotiators to \"move fast\" to end the war, but Israeli strikes continued on Tuesday, killing four people according to Gaza's civil defence agency -- a rescue force operating under Hamas's authority -- and a local hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n Qatar, a key mediator in the conflict, said Israel should already have ceased fire under Trump's plan.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It was supposed to actually cease fire if the statements made by the prime minister there regarding adherence to the Trump plan were true,\" Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters in Doha.\n<\/p>\n
\n Trump told Newsmax TV that \"I think we're very, very close to having a deal... I think there's a lot of goodwill being shown now. It's pretty amazing actually\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir has warned that if the negotiations fail, the military will \"return to fighting\" in Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
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Israel marked the second anniversary of the October 7 attack on Tuesday, as Hamas and Israeli negotiators held indirect talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza under a US-proposed peace plan. Two years ago to the day, at the close of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, Hamas-led militants launched the deadliest attack on Israel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-150615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n