Team from Gaza mediator Egypt heads to Israel: source

A delegation from mediator Egypt is travelling to Israel on Friday, a source close to the Israeli government told AFP, in what local media said is a bid to reignite stalled hostage-release negotiations.

The effort comes alongside preparations for a military push against Hamas militants in southern Gaza's Rafah, and with spillover from the Gaza war leading to stepped-up exchanges of fire over Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

Israel's army on Friday said missile fire near that border killed an Israeli civilian.

A Hamas official told AFP that any push into Rafah, where much of Gaza's population is sheltering, would threaten negotiations.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have mediated truce and hostage-release talks, so far without success since a one-week halt to the fighting in November. That truce saw the exchange of 80 Israeli captives in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Since then, global criticism of the war's toll on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has escalated, as have calls for militants there to release their captives.

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

  Famine warning 

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, with a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

During their attack, militants seized hostages, 129 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The source told AFP that Egypt's delegation was travelling to Israel "for security coordination".

Several Israeli...