CAIRO: Hamas on Monday agreed to a ceasefire proposal in the seven-month-old war with Israel in Gaza, hours after the Israeli military told residents to evacuate some parts of Rafah, which has been sheltering more than a million displaced people.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group accepted their ceasefire proposal, according to a brief statement from Hamas, which gave no details of the accord.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The agreement, should it take effect, would be the first truce since a week-long pause in the fighting in November, and follows months of failed attempts at pausing the fighting to free hostages and allow more aid into Gaza.
There had been concerns that the ceasefire talks being held in Cairo had stalled after Hamas official Izzat Al-Rashiq warned that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
The city, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, has been the last sanctuary for around half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, pushed south by Israel’s seven-month-old assault.

GENEVA: United Nations experts on Monday condemned “unacceptable” violence by the Israeli military against women and children during the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly sexual violence and enforced disappearances.
“We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” the seven special rapporteurs said in a statement.
Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. They do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
The statement pointed to “continued reports of sexual assault and violence against women and girls, including against those detained by Israeli occupation forces.”
They cited UN reports saying women and girls in Gaza were victims of enforced disappearances.
Referring to Hamas, which runs the besieged Palestinian territory, Israel’s mission in Geneva alleged the experts had “once again chosen to ignore Hamas’s systematic militarization of health facilities and civilian infrastructures in the Gaza Strip, voluntarily and actively using the population as human shields.”
“In issuing such a statement, the signatories try to create an alternative narrative, parroting the agenda of a terrorist organization that is actively destroying the lives of the Palestinian population in Gaza,” the Israeli mission said.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war started after an unprecedented attack on southern Israel by militants from Hamas on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 34,700 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The UN experts said Israel’s widespread destruction of housing in Gaza and the fact that Palestinians were having to live in “precarious” conditions in makeshift tents had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, particularly on their personal security and privacy.
“The treatment of pregnant and lactating women continues to be appalling, with the direct bombardment of hospitals and deliberate denial of access to health care facilities by Israeli snipers,” they added.
More than 180 women per day were giving birth without pain relief, while hundreds of babies have died due to a lack of electricity for incubators, they said.
These conditions have led to a surge in miscarriages, the experts said.
They said Israeli forces had “destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic,” which stored embryos, and estimated that 690,000 women and girls in Gaza were deprived of menstrual hygiene products.
The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel “categorically rejects unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assaults and violence.”
It said Israel was ready to investigate “any concrete claims of misconduct by its security forces when presented with credible allegations and evidence.”
The UN experts said “the government of Israel has continuously failed to conduct an independent, impartial and effective investigation into the reported crimes.”