Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/IDF Handout

Israeli forces carried out new air strikes in Gaza on Wednesday as Hamas studied a new proposal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in the Palestinian enclave seized following the Islamist organization’s pogrom of Oct. 7 in southern Israel, in which more than 1200 people were killed amid widespread atrocities.

Witnesses said Israel had stepped up air strikes on Gaza City in the north, and bombarded parts of Khan Younis in the south, despite what appeared to be the most serious peace initiative for months in the Israel-Hamas war.

World powers hope to prevent a wider conflict, but tensions in the Middle East remained high after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels said they would keep attacking US and British warships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians.

Relations between Tehran and Washington are also tense after the deaths of three US soldiers in a drone strike in Jordan that American officials blamed on Iran-backed militants. Washington has not yet outlined its response, but Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday they would respond to any US threat.

The Gaza health authorities, which are entirely controlled by Hamas, said 26,900 Palestinians had been killed during Israel’s military response. No breakdown of military to civilian casualties has been issued, however.

A senior Hamas official told the Reuters news agency that the Gaza ceasefire proposal currently on the table involved a three-stage truce, during which Hamas would release the remaining civilians among hostages captured on Oct. 7, then soldiers, and finally the bodies of dead hostages. The civilian hostages would be freed over a six-week pause in fighting, in exchange for three times as many Palestinian security prisoners released from Israeli jails, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The outline has been partly accepted in principle by Jerusalem and is being weighed by Hamas leaders, the report said, adding that even if the terror group accepts it, many hurdles remain and numerous details will have to be hammered out over some time — and major disagreements sure to come up will have to be overcome — before a deal can be struck.

The proposal followed talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the US and Egypt, with the prime minister of Qatar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his vow not to pull troops out of Gaza until “total victory”.

Israel says it will not stop fighting until Hamas is eradicated. Hamas says it will release its remaining captives only as part of a wider deal to end the war permanently.