KEY POINTS
- Hamas is studying a new Gaza truce proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff via mediators
- 64 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza since Thursday morning
- Jordan accuses Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war
- Russia slams Israeli attacks on Gaza as “collective punishment” of civilians
GAZA CITY, Palestine: Palestinian group Hamas on Thursday said it was examining a new deal proposed by a US envoy, as rescuers said at least 64 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn.
Negotiations on a ceasefire to end 18 months of devastating Israeli bombardment campaign have yet to yield a breakthrough since Israel resumed operations in the war-ravaged territory in March after a brief truce.
But US envoy Steve Witkoff expressed optimism on Wednesday, saying he expected to propose a plan soon.
Hamas later said it had “received Witkoff’s new proposal from the mediators and is currently studying it responsibly”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted a new ceasefire proposal presented by the US envoy, Israeli media reported.
Starvation in Gaza
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire despite aid finally beginning to trickle back into the territory after a more than two-month blockade by Israel.
Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people.
The Israeli military has also recently stepped up its offensive in the territory in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that at least 64 people have been killed since the early hours of this morning by Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territory, Al Jazeera reported. A least 30 of the victims were in the north of the enclave, the ministry said.
The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 3,986 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,249, mostly civilians.
Gaza civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP “Israeli raids kill 23 people in a strike on home in Al-Bureij”.
“Two people were killed and several injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire this morning near the American aid centre in the Morag axis, southern Gaza Strip,” he added.
The centre, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), is part of a new system for distributing aid, which has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.
“What is happening to us is degrading. The crowding is humiliating us,” said Gazan Sobhi Areef, who visited a GHF centre on Thursday.
‘Hordes of hungry people’
“We go there and risk our lives just to get a bag of flour to feed our children.”
The Israeli military said it was not aware of the shooting incident, and that it was looking into the reported deaths in Al-Bureij.
Separately, it said in a statement that its forces had struck “dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” over the past day.
In a telephone call Thursday with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Israel’s “systematic starvation tactics have crossed all moral and legal boundaries”.
On Wednesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in central Gaza, with Israel and the UN trading blame over the deepening hunger crisis.
AFP footage showed crowds of Palestinians breaking into the WFP facility in Deir al-Balah and taking bags of emergency food supplies as gunshots rang out.
“Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the UN agency said in a statement.
The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid starvation fears and intense criticism of the GHF, which has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
The UN has said it is doing its utmost to facilitate the distribution of the limited assistance allowed by Israel’s authorities.
The world body said 47 people were wounded Tuesday when crowds of Palestinians rushed a GHF site. A Palestinian medical source reported at least one death.
Russia slams Israeli attacks on Gaza
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has slammed Israeli attacks on Gaza as “collective punishment of the civilian population”, in some of Moscow’s strongest criticism of Israel as it steps up its offensive, AFP reported.
Lavrov said “measures taken by Israel” in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas “constitute collective punishment of the civilian population”, calling what was happening in Gaza “incomprehensible and indescribable”.
Global advocacy group Oxfam International has accused Israel of “erasing Gaza itself” through its relentless military campaign and mass displacement orders, and called on world powers to apply real pressure on Israel to lift the siege.
The UK-based charity said Israel’s military offensive and use of displacement orders have squeezed civilians into five zones that make up less than 20 percent of Gaza’s territory.
Along with its blockade of supplies into the territory, it appeared that Israel’s strategy was not about targeting fighters, but “a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza”, the group said in a statement, adding that the process of forced displacement was a “war crime”.
“For over 600 days, Israel has been saying it’s targeting Hamas, but it is civilians who have been corralled, bombed and killed en masse every day,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory. – Agencies
