[Source: Reuters]

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed for progress towards a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal as he visited Egypt.

but major areas of dispute are still to be resolved in talks planned for later this week.

Blinken’s visit to the region included meetings in Israel on Monday and he is now travelling to Qatar, one of the mediators in the Gaza talks along with the United States and Egypt.

In Egypt, Blinken met President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whose country has been helping mediate the on-off Gaza talks for months along with the U.S. and Qatar. Sisi said after the meeting that it was time to put an end to the war and warned of the conflict expanding in the region.

At stake is the fate of tiny, crowded Gaza, where Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 40,000 people since October according to Palestinian health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there.

The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from southern Gaza.

According to Israeli authorities, 109 hostages now remain in the Palestinian territory, of whom around a third are believed to be dead.

In Gaza, Israeli forces battled Hamas-led militants in central and southern areas, and Palestinian health authorities said at least 39 people had been killed on Tuesday in Israeli strikes, including on a school housing displaced people.

Israel’s military said it had struck Hamas militants embedded in the school.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday it was still waiting for polio vaccines to arrive after the disease was discovered in the territory, where most people now live in tents or shelters without proper sanitation. It echoed a call by the U.N. last week for a ceasefire to allow the vaccination campaign.