A few hours after the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement announced that it would agree to the mediators’ proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli army attacked targets in the east of the city of Rafah late on Monday evening.

According to an army spokesman, the targets were Hamas facilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s war Cabinet had previously decided to continue the military operation in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip in order to increase the military pressure on Hamas and achieve Israel’s war aims.

“While the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel’s core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.

Egypt and Qatar had brokered the proposal, the content of which is still officially unknown.

The Israeli military had previously called on the approximately 100,000 inhabitants of the eastern part of Rafah on the border with Egypt to move to the al-Mawasi camp a few kilometres to the north. The United Nations and the governments of numerous countries, including Germany and France, warned of the consequences of a military operation in Rafah.

Demonstrations in favour of a negotiated solution for the release of the hostages held by Hamas took place in several Israeli cities on Monday evening. “Time to decide – life or death,” read a large banner at a demonstration by relatives of the hostages abducted to the Gaza Strip on October 7.

“Instead of ending the war in order to return all the hostages home, the government is threatening a military operation in Rafah that will endanger their lives,” said a representative of the families.