Israel has rejected Hamas' latest hostage deal proposal though is still open to negotiations, reported Axios.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week rejected Hamas' demands for a hostage deal, which includes an end to the war and the release of hundreds of veteran Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in Israel for deadly attacks carried out as part of the long-running conflict.
Netanyahu also dismissed Hamas' demands as delusional, even as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believes continued negotiations, through mediators Egypt and Qatar, are possible.
Israel's four-month-old air and ground offensive — among the most destructive in recent history — has killed 27,947 Palestinians and wounded more than 67,000, local health officials said Friday.
The war has driven most people from their homes and pushed a quarter of the population toward starvation, according to the U.N.
Netanyahu on Friday said he ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the densely populated southern Gaza city.
The announcement came after heavy international criticism, including from the U.S., of Israeli intentions to move ground forces into the city that borders Egypt.
Rafah had a prewar population of roughly 280,000, and according to the United Nations is now home to some 1.4 million additional people living with relatives, in shelters or in sprawling tent camps after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.