Latest updates on Israel-Gaza conflict From IDF's assassination of a Hamas leader to planned Rafah invasion

Israeli fighter jets have eliminated the head of the emergency bureau of the Palestinian radical Hamas movement in the central part of the Gaza Strip by an air strike.

"At night, on the instructions of IDF intelligence, fighter jets struck and destroyed terrorist Hatem Alrameri - the head of Hamas' emergency bureau in the central camps of the Gaza Strip," Caliber.Az reports, citing Israel Defence Forces (IDF) press service.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel has set the date for IDF troops to enter Rafah because there can be no victory in the war against Hamas without an operation in the city.

The prime minister said he had received detailed information about the talks in Cairo.

"We are constantly working to achieve our goals," Netanyahu said.

According to him, it is about the release of hostages and a complete victory over Hamas. That is why the Israel Defence Forces will be brought into the city of Rafah.

In the developments of the conflict-related events, CIA Director Bill Burns presented a new proposal to try to bridge the gaps in ongoing negotiations to broker a deal to bring about a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of the Israeli hostages held by the group, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

The latest US proposal was made in Cairo over the weekend and includes pushing Israel to release a higher number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the expected 40 Israeli hostages who would be freed during the first phase of a three-stage ceasefire deal.

A second source, a diplomat, said the US proposal is for Israel to release 900 Palestinian prisoners in the first phase of a deal. Prior to this round of talks, CNN had reported that negotiators had discussed the release of around 700 Palestinian prisoners, including many with life sentences.

Qatari, Egyptian and Israeli officials, along with Burns, were in Cairo over the weekend for the negotiations. Hamas also met officials from Egypt’s Intelligence Service in Cairo, Egyptian state media said.

The US would also like Palestinian residents of northern Gaza who have fled south to be allowed to return home to the north without restrictions, the source said.

So far, Israel has rejected the Hamas demands of an unrestricted return of Gazans to the north and the redeployment of IDF troops away from central Gaza. Israel has insisted on inspections of Palestinians moving north, a diplomat familiar with the talks told CNN.

On those two thorny points the sides are still “way off,” the diplomat said. “We’re not anticipating resolving these issues in the next couple of days.”

Moreover, the United Nations Security Council says it would decide this month on the Palestinians’ bid for full UN membership, with the long shot campaign unlikely to survive US opposition.

As the Gaza war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre, rages on into its seventh month, the council’s move is described as “historic” by the Palestinians, but angrily denounced by Israel.

Maltese Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, who holds the rotating presidency of the council, says that “the council has decided that this deliberation has to take place during the month of April.”

Any request to become a UN member state must first pass through the Security Council — where the United States wields a veto — and then be endorsed by the General Assembly.

The Palestinians, who have had observer status at the world body since 2012, have lobbied for years to gain full membership, which would amount to recognition of Palestinian statehood.

“Today is a historic moment,” Palestinian Authority UN envoy Riyad Mansour tells reporters Monday as the Security Council members, through an ad hoc committee on new membership, start the review process after the Palestinians last week relaunched their formal 2011 bid.

“All we ask for is to take our rightful place among the community of nations, to be treated as equals — equals to other nations and states, to live in freedom and dignity, in peace and security, in our ancestral land,” Mansour says in the General Assembly.

Washington maintains the UN is not the place for hashing out Palestinian statehood, which it stresses should be the result of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.