Israel kills top Fatah commander
The Israeli military killed a senior commander from Fatah's armed wing on Wednesday in a strike on Lebanon, leading to accusations from the Palestinian movement that Israel is trying to ignite a regional war.
Fatah, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Khalil Maqdah died in an attack near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
The Israeli army said it targeted the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing.
It accused them both of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank and collaborating with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Fatah, which is headed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and rivals the Gaza Strip's Hamas, responded by accusing Israel of seeking to trigger a wider war.
Maqdah's killing marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement during the Gaza war.
The "assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region," Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah's central committee, told AFP in Ramallah.
The strike came only hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left apparently empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Blinken appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-backed truce proposal, while also publicly disagreeing with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Palestinian territory.
"Time is of the essence," Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Egypt and Israel.
"This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead," he said of the truce proposal.
The United States has presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, pressed Hamas to return to talks this week in Cairo.
But a day after Blinken said US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.
Netanyahu insisted Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli forces seized from Hamas, which Israel says relies on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.
Since the war began, it was made "very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel", Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu's remarks.
But he added that Israel had already agreed on the "schedule and location" of troop withdrawals from Gaza in the talks. Details have not been made public.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Netanyahu's "maximalist statements" unhelpful for reaching a truce.
Blinken acknowledged differences and called for "maximum flexibility" from both Israel and Hamas.
Hamas said it was "keen to reach a ceasefire" but protested "new conditions" from Israel in the latest US proposal.
On the ground, Gaza was again rocked by air strikes, according to AFP reporters, first responders and witnesses.