The essential

  •  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East on Sunday to support negotiations on a new truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hama. The trip includes stops in Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar. 

  • A senior Hamas official in Lebanon said Saturday that his movement was open to any discussion that would put an end to Israeli "aggression" in Gaza, saying it was premature to talk about an agreement on a truce.

  • Dozens of people were killed in nighttime strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to Hamas. 

The essentials of the day before

  • The town of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians threatened by the war in Gaza have taken refuge, was the scene of intense Israeli strikes on Saturday.

  • The Hamas Ministry of Health announced the deaths of at least 100 civilians in the evening and night of Friday February 2 to Saturday February 3, including 14 early Saturday in strikes on two residences in Rafah.

  • While the war knows no respite, diplomacy attempts to negotiate a second truce. The leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, is still expected in Egypt to discuss a proposal developed during a meeting at the end of January in Paris between the head of the CIA, William Burns, and Egyptian officials , Israelis and Qataris.

Please note: the number of victims is provided by the Hamas-led Gaza Ministry of Health.

The ministry collects information provided by hospitals in the enclave and by the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The Gaza Health Ministry does not indicate how the Palestinians were killed, whether by Israeli airstrikes and/or barrages or missed Palestinian rocket attacks. It describes all victims as victims of "Israeli aggression" and also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

During the four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, United Nations agencies regularly cited Health Ministry figures in their reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent also use these figures.

In the aftermath of previous episodes of war, the United Nations Humanitarian Office published casualty figures based on its own research into medical records. The UN figures largely agree with those of the Gaza Ministry of Health, with a few differences.

To learn more about the reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health, click here or here.

(France 24 with AP)

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