Middle East latest: Israeli strikes kill scores in Gaza as Egypt offers new ceasefire proposal

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed more than 60 Palestinians, including women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday, nearly a week after Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas with a surprise bombardment.

Meanwhile, officials say Egypt has introduced a new proposal to try and get the Gaza ceasefire back on track.

Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, in return for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and a weekslong pause in the fighting, an Egyptian official said Monday. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

A Hamas official said the group had “responded positively” to the proposal, without elaborating. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the closed-door talks.

— By Samy Magdy in Cairo

Here’s the latest:

Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network says one of its Palestinian freelance reporters, Hossam Shabat, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car in northern Gaza on Monday.

Shabat was killed while covering the war for the broadcaster’s Arabic-language TV channel, the network said. He had been wounded by an Israeli strike last November, the network reported at the time.

Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war. The channel is owned by Qatar, which alongside Egypt and the U.S. has been a key negotiator for the ceasefire.