Kolkata, May 20: Singer Arijit Singh's mother, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 for quite some time, has breathed her last at a hospital here, authorities at the medical facility said.

Aditi Singh (52) had tested negative for the viral disease on Monday but succumbed to a cerebral stroke late on Thursday, they said.

"She passed away last night around 11 pm. Singh, admitted with COVID, was put on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). She tested negative on Monday but succumbed to a cerebral stroke last night," an official statement issued by the medical establishment explained.

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Jerusalem, May 6: Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.

It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering.

An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.

An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a stance was still being formulated.

Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and some Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal, they said.