A top Hamas official accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of trying to derail a proposed Gaza truce and hostage release deal with his threats to keep fighting the Palestinian militant group.
"Netanyahu was the obstructionist of all previous rounds of dialogue... and it is clear that he still is," senior Hamas official Hossam Badran told AFP by telephone.
Foreign mediators have waited for a Hamas response to a proposal to halt the fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, which its chief Ismail Haniyeh has said the group was considering in a "positive spirit".
A major stumbling block has been that, while Hamas has demanded a lasting ceasefire, Netanyahu has vowed to crush its remaining fighters in the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.
The hawkish prime minister has insisted that he will send ground troops into Rafah, despite strong concerns voiced by ally Washington for the safety of the 1.2 million people sheltering in the city hard by the Egyptian border.
Badran charged that Netanyahu's insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to "thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement" in the negotiations brokered by Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators.
The Gaza war raged on unabated and Israeli air strikes killed several more people in Rafah overnight, Palestinian medics and the civil defence agency said.
One bereaved resident, Sanaa Zoorob, said her sister and six of her nieces and nephews were killed.
Two of the children "were found in pieces in their mother's embrace," Zoorob said, appealing for "a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal from Gaza".
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
