GAZA: The Gaza escalation has sparked violence across the region, including near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

“A diplomatic solution is the only way to end the current hostilities” and achieve “a lasting fair security arrangement between Lebanon and Israel”, US envoy Amos Hochstein told reporters in Beirut on Monday, adding that “a temporary ceasefire is not enough”.

“A limited war is not containable,” he said after meeting with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally.

On Monday, a foreign worker in northern Israel was killed and seven Indian workers were wounded in a missile strike near the Lebanese border, Israeli medics said.

Israel’s army said late on Monday it had carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response. Hezbollah said three paramedics affiliated with the group had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who since November have fired drones and missiles at numerous ships in the Red Sea area vital for world trade, claimed responsibility for another strike. Their claim came after marine security firm Ambrey reported a Liberian-flagged vessel was targeted and reportedly struck off Yemen.

International mediators and Hamas delegates are in Cairo today for talks to try to secure a pause in the Israeli offensive in Gaza ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan.

Envoys from Hamas and the United States were expected to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators for a third day of negotiations over a six-week truce, the exchange of dozens of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and the flow of aid to Gaza.

Israeli delegates have so far stayed away from the negotiations, despite growing diplomatic pressure for a truce before Ramadan early next week. Israeli media reported that the country’s mediators boycotted the talks after Hamas failed to provide a list of living hostages.

Senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim told AFP however, that details on the prisoners “were not mentioned in any documents or proposals circulated during the negotiation process”.

Israel has said it believes 130 of the 250 captives taken by Hamas in the October attack that triggered the crisis remain in Gaza, but that 31 have been killed.