KEY POINTS
- Israel issued “final warning” for Gaza City residents to flee south as the military tightened its encirclement.
- Hamas is considering a US peace plan by President Trump.
- Hamas seeks amendments to the disarmament clause and international guarantees for full Israeli withdrawal.
- The Red Cross and MSF suspended activities in Gaza City due to intensified Israeli bombardment.
- Israeli military offensive has killed over 66,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.
GAZA CITY, Palestine: Israel’s defence minister issued a final warning for Gaza City residents to flee south on Wednesday, as Hamas weighed US President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan to end nearly two years of Israeli military offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Witnesses reported heavy Israeli bombardment in Gaza’s largest urban centre, as Israel Katz warned the military was tightening its encirclement of Gaza City.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas operatives isolated in Gaza City,” Katz posted on X, adding that those who remained would “be considered terrorists and terrorist supporters.”
Katz said the military had captured the Netzarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip through to the western coast, a move he said cut the north of Gaza off from the south.
The Israeli minister added that anyone leaving Gaza City for the south would have to pass through Israeli military checkpoints.
The announcement came hours after the military said it was closing the last remaining route for residents of southern Gaza to access the north.
On the ground in Gaza City, 60-year-old Rabah Al-Halabi, who lives in a tent on the premises of Al-Shifa Hospital, described relentless explosions.
“I will not leave because the situation in Gaza City is no different from the situation in the southern Gaza Strip,” he told AFP by telephone.
“All areas are dangerous, the bombing is everywhere, and displacement is terrifying and humiliating,” he said. “We are waiting for death, or perhaps relief from God and for the truce to come.”
Hamas seeks amendment to disarmament clause
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday said that intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza City had forced it to temporarily suspend its activities there, warning that “tens of thousands… face harrowing humanitarian conditions.”
It came days after medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had been forced to suspend its work there because of Israel’s offensive.
UN agencies and some aid organizations still operate in Gaza City.
Meanwhile, Hamas mulled a peace plan put forward by Trump and backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which calls for a ceasefire, the release of hostages within 72 hours, Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
A Palestinian source close to Hamas’s leaders, cited by AFP, said that “no final decision” had been made and that “the movement will likely need two to three days.”
“Hamas wants to amend some of the items such as the disarmament clause and the expulsion of Hamas,” the source said.
They added that Hamas had informed mediators of the “need to provide international guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and guarantees that Israel will not violate a ceasefire through assassinations inside or outside Gaza.”
Gaza’s civil defence agency — a rescue force — reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Gaza City on Wednesday.
The Israeli military, cited by AFP, said it was looking into the reports.
‘Two opinions’ in Hamas
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that Hamas had “about three or four days” to accept his 20-point Gaza plan, later warning that the Islamist movement would “pay in hell” if it refused.
A source familiar with negotiations taking place in the Qatari capital Doha told AFP that “two opinions exist within Hamas.”
“The first supports unconditional approval, as the priority is a ceasefire under Trump’s guarantees, with mediators ensuring Israel implements the plan,” the source said as quoted by AFP.
“The second has serious reservations regarding key clauses, rejecting disarmament and the expulsion of any Palestinian from Gaza. They favour conditional approval with clarifications reflecting Hamas’s and the resistance factions’ demands,” the source, quoted by AFP, added.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 66,148 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health ministry figures in the territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
