Israel faces new calls for cease-fire from allies

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s government faced calls for a cease-fire from some of its closest European allies and from protesters at home on Sunday after a series of shootings, including of three hostages who waved a white flag.

The protesters urge the government to renew hostage negotiations with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whom it has vowed to destroy.

Israel could also face pressure to scale back major combat operations when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits Monday. Washington is expressing growing unease with civilian casualties even while as it provides vital military and diplomatic support.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will continue to fight until the end,” with the goal of eliminating Hamas, which triggered the war with its Oct. 7 terrorist attack into southern Israel. Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured scores of hostages.

Netanyahu vowed to bring back the estimated 129 hostages still in captivity.

Inside Israel, many are still deeply traumatized by the Oct. 7 terrorist attack and support for the war remains strong.

Israel’s military says 121 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive. It says it has killed thousands of terrorists.

Calls for a new cease-fire

In Israel on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for an “immediate truce” aimed at releasing more hostages, getting larger amounts of aid into Gaza and moving toward “the beginning of a political solution.”

France’s Foreign Ministry earlier said an employee was killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Rafah on Wednesday. It condemned the strike, which it said killed several civilians, and demanded clarification from Israeli authorities.

The foreign ministers of the U.K. and Germany, meanwhile, called for a “sustainable” cease-fire, saying too many civilians had been killed.

“Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful co-existence with Palestinians,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote in the U.K.’s Sunday Times.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The U.S. defense secretary is set to travel to Israel to continue discussions on a timetable for ending the war’s most intense phase. Israeli and U.S. officials have spoken of a transition to more targeted strikes aimed at killing Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages, without saying when it would occur.

Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends, and that in exchange it will demand the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile terrorists.

Hamas released over 100 of more than 240 hostages captured on Oct. 7 in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners during a brief cease-fire in November. Nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Israel has rescued one hostage.

Shootings draw scrutiny

Military officials said Saturday that the three hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops had tried to signal that they posed no harm. It was Israel’s first such acknowledgement of harming hostages in the war.

The hostages, all in their 20s, were killed Friday in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops are engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas terrorists. An Israeli military official said the shootings were against the army’s rules of engagement and were being investigated at the highest level.

Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields.

Pope Francis on Sunday called for peace, saying “unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at, and this has even happened inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists but families, children and sick people with disabilities, nuns.” He spoke after the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said two Christian women at a church compound in Gaza were killed by Israeli sniper fire.

A British lawmaker, Layla Moran, said several family members were among hundreds sheltering in the compound. “This is a church. It’s a week before Christmas. This is Advent. This is an important time in the Christian family’s religious calendar. And there is a sniper killing women and firing at children,” she asserted.

In discussions Saturday between the Israel Defense Forces and representatives of the church community, no one reported a strike on the church or civilians being wounded or killed, the IDF said.

“A review of the IDF’s operational findings support this,” the military said.

Israel said aid passed directly from Israel into Gaza for the first time Sunday, with 79 trucks entering from Kerem Shalom. Another 120 trucks entered via Rafah along with six trucks carrying fuel or cooking gas, said Wael Abu Omar, Palestinian Crossings Authority spokesman.

Telecom services in Gaza gradually resumed after a four-day communications blackout, the longest of several outages during the war.

The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday in its last update before the communications blackout. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to this report.