Israel-Gaza updates: Hamas has received proposed hostage deal, Qatar says

The Qatari prime minister said Monday that the hostage talks between Israel and Hamas are in a "much better place" now than they were "a few weeks ago,” according to Reuters.

He also said he hoped the drone attack by Iran-backed militants that killed three American service members in Jordan won't derail progress that's been made on a hostage deal.

"I hope that nothing would undermine the efforts that we are doing or jeopardize that process," Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani said at a think tank event in Washington, D.C., according to Reuters. "Yet it will definitely have an impact on it and one way or another, it will have an impact on the regional security and we hope that things get contained and not to get escalated beyond control."

One "quarter of Hamas' terrorists have been killed and at least another quarter are wounded," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday while visiting troops at the Gaza border.

Gallant said fighting the remaining terrorists "will take months."

"On the other hand," he continued, "the terrorists don't have supplies, they don't have ammunition, they don't have reinforcements."

-ABC News’ Dana Savir

A dossier from the Israeli military has revealed new allegations against employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees who are accused of being involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The report obtained by ABC News alleges that 13 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, including six employees who allegedly infiltrated Israel.

Four UNRWA employees were allegedly involved in kidnappings and one employee allegedly supplied logistical support, the report said.

One UNRWA teacher is accused of kidnapping a hostage, who has returned to Israel and identified the UNRWA teacher, the report said.

Nine countries, including the U.S., have paused funding for the UNRWA in wake of the allegations. The commissioner-general of UNRWA is investigating.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman

ABC News embedded with Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss, commander of the Israel Defense Forces' 98th Division that currently controls the southern Gaza Strip, and questioned him about alleged war crimes, the recent killing of an unarmed Palestinian carrying a white flag and the controversial buffer zone.

On Saturday, ABC News met with Goldfuss in what looked like a post-apocalyptic neighborhood in Khan Younis, where machine guns chattered, detonations thundered and the blasts of tank fire rang out. Some of the explosions were so powerful that they blew in the curtains of the commandeered Palestinian home that the general and his staff have turned into a temporary headquarters.

Outside the headquarters were a series of arena-sized basins. One was about 60 feet deep and larger than a football field. A month ago, it was a multi-acre cemetery. Flanking the destroyed cemetery was the remains of a mosque -- half of a dome listing on its side like a sinking ship. Goldfuss told ABC News that his troops had dug up most of the cemetery looking for tunnel shafts belonging to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza. The general pointed out where he said they found tunnel shafts, but ABC News could not visually verify due to the depth of the pit.

When asked what his troops do with the bodies if they dig up graves while hunting for tunnel shafts, Goldfuss told ABC News: "We'll put them aside."

The intentional destruction of religious sites, such as cemeteries, without military necessity violates international law and could amount to war crimes. But Goldfuss said he's not concerned because Hamas had turned the cemetery and the adjacent mosque into a "military compound" that was "used to attack my forces again and again and again."

"I'm not digging up a cemetery, I'm digging up a military compound," he added.

When asked what he would say to the families of the people who were buried there, the general told ABC News: "I'm very sorry about it. Your relatives are being used as a human shield."

Last week, British television network ITV captured what it said were Israeli snipers in Khan Younis gunning down an unarmed Palestinian man carrying a white flag who had moments earlier told the news team that he was trying to cross the battle lines to reach his family. At the time, Israel claimed the ITV video was edited and that there was no way of telling who fired the shots. However, while speaking to ABC News on Saturday, Goldfuss appeared to take responsibility for the incident.

"Yes, it was my troops and I'm investigating that incident," he told ABC News. "That is not the way we carry out rules of engagement. No, we don't fire people waving white flags. We don't fire at civilians."

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Negotiators working toward cease-fire deal in Gaza

ABC News’ Matt Gutman reports on the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war.

ABCNews.com

When pressed on the fact that Israeli troops have killed civilians in Gaza, the general said: "They are mistakes. It is war."

Asked whether Israeli soldiers could face criminal charges for the fatal shooting, Goldfuss told ABC News that "it depends."

"We investigate every mistake that is done," he added.

The general also answered questions about the buffer zone the IDF is creating inside Gaza along the coastal enclave’s border with Israel.

"This is part of the area that will become a buffer zone ... to dismantle Hamas and prevent any entity that will try to carry out any terror attacks against our people," he told ABC News while looking at a table-sized aerial map of the Gaza-Israel border.

Goldfuss said the buffer zone will create an area inside Gaza that is under Israel's control.

-ABC News' Matt Gutman and Sohel Uddin