By Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Hamas&nbsp;gunmen battled&nbsp;Israeli forces trying to push into&nbsp;Gaza's largest refugee camp on Sunday, but&nbsp;despite&nbsp;the&nbsp;fighting&nbsp;U.S. and&nbsp;Israeli officials said a&nbsp;deal&nbsp;to free some of the&nbsp;hostages held in the besieged enclave was edging&nbsp;closer.
About 240&nbsp;hostages were taken during&nbsp;Hamas's deadly cross-border rampage into&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;on Oct. 7, which prompted&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;to invade the tiny Palestinian territory to wipe out the Islamist group.
Israeli tanks and troops stormed into&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;late last month and have since wrested control of large areas of the north and northwest and east around&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;City, the&nbsp;Israeli military says.
But&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;and local witnesses say militants are waging guerrilla-style war in pockets of the densely urbanised north, including parts of&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;City and the sprawling Jabalia and Beach refugee camps.
Even as&nbsp;fighting&nbsp;raged on the ground,&nbsp;Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;was hopeful a significant number of&nbsp;hostages could be released by&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;"in coming days."
Reuters reported on Nov. 15 that Qatari mediators had been seeking a&nbsp;deal&nbsp;between&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;and&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;to exchange 50&nbsp;hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire that would help boost emergency aid shipments to&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;civilians, citing an official briefed on the talks.
At the time, the official said general outlines had been agreed but&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;was still negotiating details.
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday he was not in a position to say when the&nbsp;hostages might be out. "I want to make sure they're out and then I'll tell you," he said upon arrival at a pre-Thanksgiving holiday event in Virginia with U.S. military personnel.
On Sunday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a press conference in Doha that the main obstacles to a&nbsp;deal&nbsp;were now "very minor," with mainly "practical and logistical" issues remaining.
A White House official also said the "very complicated, very sensitive" negotiations were making progress.
DEATH TOLL 'STAGGERING AND UNACCEPTABLE'
The talks coincided with&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;preparing to expand its offensive against&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;to&nbsp;Gaza's southern half, signalled by increasing air strikes on targets&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;sees as lairs of armed militants.
However,&nbsp;Israel's main ally the United States cautioned it on Sunday not to embark on combat operations in the south until military planners have taken into account the safety of Palestinian civilians.
Gaza's traumatized population has been on the move since the start of the war, sheltering in hospitals or trudging from the north to the south and, in some cases, back again, in desperate efforts to stay out of the line of fire.
Gaza's&nbsp;Hamas-run government said at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed in&nbsp;Israeli bombardments since then, including at least 5,500 children.
The civilian death toll in&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;was "staggering and unacceptable," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, appealing again on Sunday for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
Witnesses reported heavy&nbsp;fighting&nbsp;overnight between&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;gunmen and&nbsp;Israeli forces trying to advance into Jabalia, a camp with nearly 100,000 people.
Repeated&nbsp;Israeli bombardment of Jabalia, which grew out of a camp for Palestinian refugees from the 1948&nbsp;Israeli-Arab war, has killed scores of civilians, Palestinian medics say.&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;says the strikes have killed many militants dug into the area.
Via social media in Arabic,&nbsp;Israel's military on Sunday urged residents of several Jabalia neighbourhoods to evacuate south "to preserve your safety" and to that end said it would pause military action from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
After the "pause" expired, 11 Palestinians in Jabalia were killed by an&nbsp;Israeli air strike on a house, the enclave's health ministry said.
Palestinians say&nbsp;Israel's repeated bombardment of southern&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;renders&nbsp;Israeli promises of safety absurd.
Around 1,200&nbsp;Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed in&nbsp;Hamas's shock Oct. 7 assault, according to&nbsp;Israeli tallies, the deadliest day in the country's 75-year history.
A total of 64&nbsp;Israeli soldiers have died in the conflict, according to the latest army count.
'DEATH ZONE' AT&nbsp;GAZA'S BIGGEST HOSPITAL
The&nbsp;Israeli army says&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;uses residential and other civilian buildings as cover for command centers, weapons caches, rocket launchpads and a vast underground tunnel network. The Islamist movement denies using human shields to wage war.
A team led by the World Health Organization that visited Al Shifa,&nbsp;Gaza's biggest hospital, on Saturday described it as a "death zone", days after advancing&nbsp;Israeli forces seized the premises to root out an alleged underground&nbsp;Hamas&nbsp;command centre.
The WHO team reported signs of gunfire and shelling and a mass grave at Al Shifa's entrance, and said it was making plans for the immediate evacuation of 291 remaining patients, including the war-wounded, and 25 staff.
Israeli military issued a statement on Sunday in response saying it was conducting "a precise operation to uncover terror infrastructure" at the hospital.
On Sunday, 31 premature babies were evacuated from Al Shifa in a joint operation by the United Nations and Palestinian Red Crescent to be taken over the Rafah border crossing for hospitalisation in Egypt,&nbsp;Gaza's health ministry said.
Eight premature babies previously died at Al Shifa for lack of electricity and medication crucial to care, it said.
Hundreds of other patients, staff and displaced people who were sheltering in Al Shifa left on Saturday, with Palestinian health officials saying they were ejected inhumanely by&nbsp;Israeli troops and the military saying the departures were voluntary.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 48 journalists and media workers have been confirmed killed in the region since the Oct. 7 attack on&nbsp;Israel, including the head of a prominent media institution in&nbsp;Gaza&nbsp;and two other journalists.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, James Mackenzie, Henriette Chacar and Reuters bureaux; writing by Kim Coghill, Mark Heinrich, Alex Richardson and Patricia Zengerle; editing by William Mallard, Hugh Lawson, Andrew Heavens and Diane Craft)

you might like

Israel-Hamas hostage deal edges closer despite fierce fighting in Gaza