The death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has topped 66,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday, a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the White House for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on halting Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza City.
Israeli security forces meanwhile shot dead the alleged attacker in a car-ramming incident in which a man was seriously injured at a road junction near Nablus in the West Bank. The attack was praised by Hamas. Violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which alongside Gaza and east Jerusalem was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want for a future state.
Netanyahu has come under heavy international pressure to end the war. Key Western allies have joined a growing list of countries recognizing a Palestinian state over Israeli objections. The European Union is considering sanctions and there are growing moves for a sports and cultural boycott against Israel.
After dozens of delegates poured out of the hall, a defiant Netanyahu told fellow world leaders Friday at the U.N. General Assembly that his nation “must finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza as his military pressed on with an offensive in Gaza City.
Trump has so far stood behind Israel. But the U.S. leader has shown signs of impatience lately, particularly after Israel’s bombing of Qatar earlier this month in what appears to have been a failed attempt to kill Hamas’ leadership. In Monday’s White House meeting, Trump is expected to share a new proposal for ending the war.
Forty-eight hostages are still held captive in Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, since an attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war. Ceasefire talks have been stalled since Israel’s widely condemned strike in Doha, Qatar.
