Israel-Hamas war live: Calls grow to extend truce in its final day

The Israeli PM’s office has confirmed it has received another list of names of Palestinian prisoners to be released and that discussions are continuing.

Earlier, Israeli media reported that Hamas had not yet provided the names of 11 captives held in Gaza expected to be released on Monday.

Palestinians in Gaza are looking to have a few extra days just to allow them to deal with the sheer amount of destruction around them.

They are taking this opportunity to secure necessities such as food and water. It’s also an opportunity to grieve properly and to hold proper funerals.

There is also a unanimous agreement here that as long as people who evacuated to the south are unable to go back north  – to their homes and embrace their relatives and loved ones – it is an incomplete and unfair truce.

We’ve had some shows of strength from Netanyahu and Hamas, and also indications that extension to the ceasefire deal is still alive.

Hamas, by releasing captives, is essentially saying to Israel: Do you think you can convince people that you’ve won in the north of the Gaza Strip? Well, we’re still here.

By going to Gaza himself, Netanyahu is doing that classic tough guy, commander-in-chief thing. He’s making a point of being the first Israeli PM to go there since before 2005.

Netanyahu reiterated the war aims but did talk about the possibility of extending that ceasefire agreement.

The terms are an extra day of truce for every 10 captives released and Hamas would want to see the same deal applied for its prisoners in Israeli jails, with a ratio of one to three.

We understood that the Israeli war cabinet is going to be meeting later on at some point to discuss these negotiations. Each side has its own agendas and each side is also fairly sure that this is not going to be the end of the fighting.

Police in the US state of Vermont have provided new details about the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent near a university on Saturday.

Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said on Sunday that the students were walking to the home of one of the victim’s relatives when they were confronted by a white man armed with a handgun.

“Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled,” Murad said. “All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities.”

Murad said two of the victims were in a stable condition and the other suffered “much more serious injuries”.

Murad said police did not yet have any information to suggest a motive for attacking the students, two of whom were wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves.

“In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime. The fact is that we don’t yet know as much as we want to right now,” Murad said. “But I urge the public to avoid making conclusions based on statements from uninvolved parties who know even less.”

Human Rights Watch claims that the explosion that caused mass casualties at Gaza’s Ahli Arab Hospital in October was caused by a misfired rocket similar to munitions used by Palestinian groups.

It said in a report that the blast was caused by an “apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups”, adding that further investigation is needed to determine who launched the apparent rocket.

HRW said its investigation was based on publicly available photos and videos, satellite imagery, interviews with five witnesses, other analyses and expert opinion.

Israel, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada said that intelligence assessments suggested the blast was caused by a failed Palestinian rocket, while Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike.

Investigations by Al Jazeera, the New York Times, The Washington Post and Channel 4 News found that a projectile captured in footage before the blast – cited as evidence to support the culpability of Palestinian groups – was likely not related to the explosion.

Gaza’s health ministry said 471 people were killed in the explosion, a figure disputed by Israel. US intelligence officials estimated that 100-300 were killed.

The brief pause in Israeli’s bombardment of Gaza has allowed glimpses of the scale of destruction in and around Gaza City.

These photographs by Abed Sabah for Reuters news agency show destroyed homes and other buildings at Shati (Beach) refugee camp, west of Gaza City.

Some 90,000 refugees lived in the 0.52sq km (0.2sq miles) area of the camp before Israeli raids repeatedly targeted it from early October.

The US Central Command said that two ballistic missiles, reported earlier to have been fired from the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, landed 10 nautical miles (18.5km) from a US vessel that responded to a distress call sent by a commercial vessel off the Gulf of Aden.

“There was no damage or reported injuries from either vessel during this incident,” a US statement said.

Earlier, we reported of an attempt to take over the chemical tanker Central Park, which was carrying a cargo of phosphoric acid, off the Gulf of Aden.

The vessel reportedly sent a distress signal prompting the US aircraft USS Mason to respond, thwarting the hijacking and arresting the attackers of the vessel owned by Israel’s Ofer family.