Gaza officials say Israeli strike hits school as IDF recovers remains of 6 hostages and Biden says Hamas “backing away” from cease-fire proposal

There were conflicting messages about the prospects of a truce deal in the Israel-Hamas war Tuesday as the death toll on both sides continued to climb. Civil defense officials in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said an Israeli strike on a school being used as a shelter in the enclave’s biggest city killed at least 10 people. 

The strike on the Mostafa Hafez school in Gaza City came as a children’s activity took place next to the building, officials in the territory told CBS News. The Israel Defense Forces said the air force had struck the school as it was being used as a Hamas command center. 

“The command and control center was embedded and hidden by the Hamas terrorist organization inside” the school, the IDF said in a statement, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”

The IDF also said Tuesday that troops had recovered the bodies of six more hostages inside Gaza. Five of them were already known to have been killed in captivity, and a sixth was confirmed Tuesday. Israeli authorities said the bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Haim Perry were recovered from near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in an intelligence-led operation.

IDF operations in Gaza — where officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel sparked the war — have continued apace during the cease-fire negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the war will not end until Israel achieves its stated objectives of destroying Hamas and bringing home the remaining hostages. There were 109 people still listed as hostages in Gaza by Israeli authorities before the recoveries on Tuesday, including 34 known to have been killed whose remains were yet to be returned.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Israel Tuesday morning to head for Qatar and Egypt, which have helped the U.S. negotiate the long-sought but thus far elusive cease-fire agreement to halt the fighting in Israel’s war with Hamas and to secure the release of the hostages. The talks appeared to be making headway Monday, as Blinken said Netanyahu had backed a so-called “bridging proposal” from the U.S. aimed at closing the final gaps in demands between Israel and Hamas.

Blinken and President Biden said the onus was on Hamas to agree to the proposal, but a Hamas official told CBS News right after the announcement by Blinken that the group “didn’t receive any new proposals.” Both sides have accused each other of blocking a truce agreement for months.

Blinken said Monday that Netanyahu had “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal, that he supports it. It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.” 

Speaking Tuesday morning, Mr. Biden said Hamas was “backing away” from the deal, saying it was “still in play, but you can’t predict” the outcome of the talks.

“Israel says they can work it out,” the president said in Chicago, but “Hamas is now backing away.”

Hamas fired back Tuesday, accusing Mr. Biden and Blinken of issuing “misleading” statements that “do not reflect the true position of the movement [Hamas], which is keen to reach a cessation of aggression.”

The group, in a statement released on social media, again accused Israel of changing the terms of a truce proposal tabled in early July that it says was “based on Biden’s own declaration on May 31st,” calling U.S. acceptance of the changes purportedly sought by Israel, “acquiescence to the terrorist Netanyahu’s new conditions and his criminal plans towards the Gaza Strip.”

During his visit to Israel on Monday, Blinken said the talks were at “a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a cease-fire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security.”