Israeli official says Gaza ceasefire proposal from Hamas is ‘workable'
Hamas confirmed sending a response to mediators in an statement early on Thursday.
The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.
Mourners carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli bombardment of Al-Zawaideh, central Gaza (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Israel said it was reviewing Hamas's response. A statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed receipt of the Hamas reply on Thursday but did not specify what it entailed.
The offer came a day after more than 100 charity and human rights groups said Israel's blockade and military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip towards starvation.
Experts say Gaza is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and the offensive launched in response to Hamas's attack on October 7 2023.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 48 Palestinians have died of malnutrition in the past month, adding that 59 Palestinians died of malnutrition so far in 2025, up from 50 in 2024, and four in 2023 when Israel started its war against Hamas.
In the most recent cases, a man and a woman died of malnutrition on Wednesday, the Shifa Hospital told The Associated Press.
Of the 113 that died of malnutrition in Gaza since 2023, 81 were children, the health ministry said.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to travel to Europe to meet key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and the release of hostages.
Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children.
At least five Palestinians were killed in central Gaza late on Wednesday, according to the Aqsa Hospital morgue that received the bodies on Thursday in the city of Deir al-Balah.
Two people, a man and a woman, were killed east of the city in Israeli tank shelling.
Another person was killed by Israeli troops in a shooting in the Bureij refugee camp, and two others were among a group of people hit by an Israeli strike in Zawaida.
Elsewhere, Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that two Palestinian teenage boys had been killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday night in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel's military said its forces fired at Palestinians throwing petrol bombs towards a major road, killing two near the town of Al-Khader.
Palestinian health officials named the teenagers killed as Ahmed Al-Salah, 15, and Mohammed Khaled Alian Issa, 17.
Violence has spiralled in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began. More than 955 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli fire during that time, according to the United Nations, many during raids Israel says are to stamp out militancy.
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Gaza father grieving loss of child to malnutrition scrambles to save siblings
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And now he is in this situation where he's struggling to find clean water." Dr Sabra's sister has 12-year old twins, and one of the girls has type 1 diabetes. He said in one of the last messages he received from his sister, she told him the only insulin she managed to find was expired."Last week, she sent another message, telling me her daughter's blood sugar was very low and she was just running in the street, shouting for anyone who has any sugar. "A neighbour gave her a small container of sugar, which she managed to give to her daughter. So even basic things, it doesn't exist anymore." He added: "My sister told me that starving is a hundred times worse than being bombed and killed at once, because she is seeing her children starving and she can't provide for them. "A kilo of flour is 200 times more expensive than what it was a year ago."BBC Wales spoke to Dr Sabra after he fled Gaza in 2023, shortly after the current war was visiting his family when Hamas led an attack at a music festival and several villages in southern Israel on 7 October 2023. More than 1,100 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Israel launched a military campaign in response shortly this week Hamas released the footage of hostage Evyatar David, 24, looking emaciated and weak, drawing strong condemnation from Israel and Western leaders. He is among 49 hostages who Israel says are still being held in Gaza. This includes 27 hostages who are believed to be Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza said more than 60,000 people have been killed in the territory since October 2023. When the conflict broke out Dr Sabra was stranded in Gaza for six weeks. He said the five-storey home his family were renting was bombed and and his family travelled to the Rafah crossing, close to the border with Egypt to wife and children were able to cross, but he was turned away because his name was left off a list of British nationals. Four days later his name was added, and he was able to get out. He said hearing of family and friends dying was frustrating and difficult to deal with as he was unable to treat them. "Working in a hospital in the NHS, I deal with death and dying people. But the difficult thing with what's going on in Gaza is just the unknown and you don't have closure," he said."Every day when I hold the phone and open it my fear is I will lose another member of my family."I feel guilty when we eat something, when I know that my family and two million other people are starving."He said "hundreds" of members of his extended family had been killed in Gaza."My wife's nephew, who was killed in February 2024, when he went to get a bag of flour for his family, he was shot in the pelvis and even paramedics were not allowed to come and rescue him. He bled to death."Your loved ones sometimes will be killed, and you don't even know if they've been killed or not. They will just vanish."Referencing the recent casualties at aid centres set up by the Israeli Defence Force in northern Gaza, Dr Sabra said: "Many people are killed at so called aid humanitarian centres, which in Gaza is called, the death trap." BBC Wales has approached the Israeli Embassy in London for a response. Israeli government spokespeople have previously insisted there were no restrictions on aid deliveries and maintained there was "no starvation" and has repeatedly accused Hamas of stealing aid. They have also denied targeting aid distribution centres during attacks.
