Terror group Hamas claims it is ready to release hostages in a bid to end the war in Gaza
HAMAS has said that it is ready to release hostages in a bid to end the war in Gaza.
The move by the terror group is part of a response to a US ceasefire proposal.
Hamas said it would release ten living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel's release of a number of Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas said: 'This proposal aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and ensure the flow of aid to our people and families.'
There was no immediate response from Israel to the statement.
But PM Benjamin Netanyahu had last week told families of the hostages they had accepted the US proposals.
It comes as Gaza health officials said yesterday that 14 people had been killed and 284 injured in the past day.
It said the territory's entire population was at risk of famine.
Displaced Palestinians living in tents were handed food by aid agencies.
Women and children were among those gathered in Khan Yunis holding pots and pans.
Jens Laerke, of the UN's humanitarian agency, said it was the only area on the planet where 100 per cent of the population was at risk of famine.
He added: 'Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth.'
Death of Hamas chief Mohammad Sinwar could cause DECIMATED terror group to implode
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"Look, one of the things about being a spokesperson is you're not a spokesperson for yourself. You are a spokesperson for the president, the administration, and you espouse the positions of the administration. And when you're not in the administration, you can just give your own opinions." Now out of office, he offered a candid reflection of a hugely challenging period in foreign policy and US politics. 1:37 Gaza disagreements Asked about Gaza, he revealed there were "small and big" disagreements within the Biden administration over the US-Israeli relationship. "There were disagreements all along the way about how to handle policy. Some of those were big disagreements, some of those were little disagreements," he said. Pushed on rumours that then- secretary of state Antony Blinken had frustrations with Mr Biden over both Gaza and Ukraine policy, Mr Miller hinted at the tensions. 👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈 "I'll probably wait and let the secretary speak for himself… but I will say, speaking generally, look, it is true about every senior official in government that they don't win every policy fight that they enter into. And what you do is you make your best case to the president. "The administration did debate, at times, whether and when to cut off weapons to Israel. You saw us in the spring of 2024 stop the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel because we did not believe they would use those in a way that was appropriate in Gaza." Through the spring and summer of 2024, the Biden administration was caught between its bedrock policy of the unconditional defence of its ally Israel and the reality of what that ally was doing in Gaza, with American weapons. 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The United States government had not concluded that they committed war crimes, still have not concluded [that]." He went on to offer a qualification to his accusation. "There are two ways to think about the commission of war crimes," he said. "One is if the state has pursued a policy of deliberately committing war crimes or is acting recklessly in a way that aids and abets war crimes. Is the state committing war crimes? "That, I think, is an open question. I think what is almost certainly not an open question is that there have been individual incidents that have been war crimes where Israeli soldiers, members of the Israeli military, have committed war crimes." The Israeli government continues to strongly deny all claims that it has committed war crimes in Gaza. On Joe Biden's election hopes Mr Miller also offered a candid reflection on the suitability of Mr Biden as a candidate in the 2024 US election. While Mr Biden initially ran to extend his stay in the White House, he stepped aside, with Kamala Harris taking his place as the Democratic candidate. "Had I not been inside the government, had I been outside the government acting kind of in a political role, of course, I would have wanted to have a better candidate," he said. "It's that collective action problem where no one wants to be the first to speak out and stand up alone. You stand up by yourself and get your head chopped off, stand up together, you can take action. "But there was never really a consensus position in the party, and there was no one that was willing to stand up and rally the party to say this isn't going to work. "I don't think there is anyone on the White House staff, including the most senior White House staffers, who could have gone to Joe Biden in the spring of 2023 or at any time after that and told him: 'Mr President, you are not able to do the duties of this job. And you will not win re-election.' He would have rejected that outright." 1:00 On the Donald Trump presidency so far, he offered a nuanced view. He described Mr Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as "an extremely capable individual" but expressed his worry that he was being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I know the people in the Biden administration who worked with him during the first negotiations for Gaza ceasefire thought that he was capable. "I think at times he doesn't know what he doesn't know. And you see that especially in the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, where you see him go into a meeting with Vladimir Putin and come out spouting Russian propaganda… I think he would benefit from a little diplomatic savvy and some experienced diplomats around him." He continued: "But I do think it's extremely important that when people sit down with an envoy of the United States they know that that envoy speaks for the President of the United States and it is very clear that Witkoff has that and that's an extremely valuable asset to bring to the table." On the months and years ahead under Mr Trump, Mr Miller said: "The thing that worries me most is that Donald Trump may squander the position that the United States has built around the world over successive administrations of both parties over a course of decades. "I don't think most Americans understand the benefits that they get to their daily lives by the United States being the indispensable nation in the world.
