Death toll fromIsrael's Gaza offensive tops 40,000

DOHA:

The United States hailed a "promising start" to Gaza ceasefire talks Thursday, as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said has killed 40,005.

The conflict sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a towering humanitarian crisis.

Talks involving CIA director William Burns opened in the Qatari capital Doha, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

"Today is a promising start," Kirby told reporters in Washington, adding: "There remains a lot of work to do."

The talks were expected to continue on Friday, he said.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the movement did not take part in Thursday's meeting but stood ready to join the indirect negotiations if they produced new commitments from Israel.

The Palestinian group has demanded the implementation of a truce plan laid out in late May by US President Joe Biden.

"If the mediators succeed in forcing the (Israeli) occupation to agree, we would, but so far there's nothing new," Hamdan told AFP.

He said Hamas would not take part in protracted negotiations that "give (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu more time to kill the Palestinian people".

So far, there has been only one truce in November, when Gaza militants released 105 hostages seized in the October 7 attack, the Israelis among them in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 -- which UN chief Antonio Guterres said was "yet another reason" why a ceasefire was needed now.

"Given the... disturbing number of people who remain unaccounted for, who may be trapped or dead under the rubble, this number may, if anything, be an undercount," his spokesman Farhan Haq said.

"This is yet another reason why we need to have a ceasefire now, as well as the release of all hostages and unimpeded humanitarian assistance."