Hamas responds to US truce proposal, says would free 10 living hostages
Hamas has said it has responded to a ceasefire proposal presented by US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to mediators and included a demand for an end to the war, which had previously been a red line for Israel.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that under the deal, it will release ten living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel's release of a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, comments in line with Mr Witkoff's proposal.
The Hamas statement added: "This proposal aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip."
It said its response came "after conducting a round of national consultations".
The statement did not mention that it was seeking any changes in the proposal, but a Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that Hamas sought some amendments while its response was positive.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israeli media reported earlier this week that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel had accepted the deal presented by Mr Witkoff. The prime minister's office declined to comment at the time.
Deep differences between Hamas and Israel have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire that broke down in March.
Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely, be dismantled as a military and governing force and return all 58 hostages still held in Gaza before it will agree to end the war.
Hamas has rejected the demand to give up its weapons and says Israel must pull its troops out of Gaza and commit to ending the war.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack in its south on 7 October 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 Israelis taken hostage into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say, and has left the enclave in ruins.
Conditions in Gaza are catastrophic despite renewed aid - UN
The situation in Gaza is the worst since the war between Israel and Hamas began 19 months ago, the United Nations has said, despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries in the Palestinian enclave where famine looms.
Under growing global pressure, Israel ended an 11-week-long blockade on Gaza 12 days ago, allowing limited UN-led operations to resume. Then on Monday, a controversial new avenue for aid distribution was also launched - the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel.
"Any aid that gets into the hands of people who need it is good," UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York. But, he added, the aid deliveries so far overall have had "very, very little impact."
"The catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began," he said.
The UN and international aid groups have refused to work with the GHF because they say it is not neutral and has a distribution model that forces the displacement of Palestinians.
Watch: 'Catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began' - Dujarric
Israel ultimately wants the UN to work through the GHF, which is using private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution by civilian teams at so-called secure distribution sites.
However, Israel will allow aid deliveries "for the immediate future" via both the UN and the GHF operations, Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said this week. GHF said that it has so far managed to distribute more than 2.1 million meals.
Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.
The UN says that in the past 12 days it has only managed to transport some 200 truckloads of aid into Gaza, hindered by insecurity and Israeli access restrictions. It was not immediately clear how much of that aid reached those in need. It said some trucks and a World Food Programme warehouse have also been looted by desperate, hungry people.
UN officials have also criticised Israeli limitations on what kind of aid they can provide.
"Israeli authorities have not allowed us to bring in a single ready-to-eat meal. The only food permitted has been flour for bakeries. Even if allowed in unlimited quantities, which it hasn't been, it wouldn't amount to a complete diet for anyone," said Eri Kaneko, UN humanitarian affairs spokesperson.
Some recipients of GHF aid said the packages include some rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits and sugar.
Under a complex process, Israel inspects and clears aid shipments, which are then transported to the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing. There the aid is offloaded and then reloaded on to other trucks for transport to warehouses in Gaza.
Several hundred more truckloads of aid currently await UN collection from the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom.
"More aid would actually get to the people if you would collect the aid waiting for you by the crossings," COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, said to the UN in a posting on X.
However, the UN said that on Tuesday the Israeli military denied all its requests to access Kerem Shalom to pick up the aid. And yesterday, when 65 trucks of aid managed to leave the crossing, all but five turned back due to intense fighting.
Five trucks of medical aid managed to reach the warehouses of a field hospital, but "a group of armed individuals stormed the warehouses... looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines and nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children," Mr Dujarric said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Forget hope. Be a hopeful pessimist instead
Pope Francis was a nice fella, but was he wrong about hope? Diagnosing the problems of the modern world, he argued that what we need more than anything today is belief in a better future. Yet many of the worst actors globally are infused with overconfidence, or excessive optimism. Hope itself appears to have become an impediment to tackling urgent challenges. Action on climate change is weakened by a general hope technology will come to the rescue. European defence against Russia is undermined by a hazy belief Vladimir Putin will metamorphose into a peacemaker. Dealing with Ireland's housing crisis is crippled by a faith in the same old policies. I've lost track of the number of people who said in the wake of Donald Trump's election as US president 'ah, sure, he mightn't be so bad'. And then there's the irrational exuberance surrounding artificial intelligence , with governments now tending to see the glass as half full regarding this potentially cataclysmic technology. Not for nothing is the biography of OpenAI boss Sam Altman called The Optimist. Philosophers have long discussed the paradoxical nature of hope. READ MORE 'Only one thing is more stupid than absolute pessimism and that is absolute optimism,' said Albert Camus. His thinking on the matter was informed by a conundrum that also troubled Pope Francis: Why are people so indifferent to the suffering of others? Francis described indifference as 'the opposite of love', and believed it was a much more common evil in human affairs than hate. Camus, who was active in the French resistance against the Nazis, was also deeply troubled by political apathy and saw it as essentially anti-love. Modern man 'fornicated and read the papers', Camus wrote in a damning assessment of our unmotivated condition. Francis saw hope as the answer to indifference. 'It is often said that 'so long as there is life, there is hope', but the truth, if anything, is the opposite: it is hope that keeps life going, protects it, takes care of it, helps it to grow,' he wrote. Camus was more ambivalent about optimism, and argued pessimism could be a more powerful force against inertia, what he called 'man's strongest temptation'. He was particularly wary of ideological hope in 'some great idea' – be it religious or secular – that deflected us from reality. 'We find in his [Camus's] pessimism a clearsightedness that cuts through all the subterfuges and evasions available in his time to the beating core of his activism: that we must do what must be done, for reasons of justice and solidarity – because we owe it to our fellow human beings to prevent their suffering as best we can ... Camus proposes a fierce philosophy of action that is as bold as it is stark, stripped from any confidence of victory,' philosopher Mara Van der Lugt writes in a new book, Hopeful Pessimism. [ Don't dismiss Peig Sayers. Her stoic folk wisdom has plenty to offer today Opens in new window ] Camus's wariness of hope seems well founded when considering the utopian thinking of today's tech moguls. Elon Musk , the world's richest man, dreams of occupying Mars and re-engineering democracy. And to achieve this goal, we need less – not more – concern for the suffering of our fellow human beings. 'The fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy. The empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in western civilisation, which is the empathy response,' the multi-billionaire whined on the Joe Rogan podcast earlier this year. For utopians like Musk, human solidarity interferes with grand visions. So what is the right approach to hope? One way of resolving the conundrum is by definitions. Hope can be defined as either positive thinking or constructive thinking. One is more passive than the other. Optimism can be defined as a belief in a positive outcome. It has a faith element, and potentially carries higher risks and rewards. Studies show optimists live longer but are also more likely to take risks. 'The evidence suggests that optimism is widespread, stubborn and costly,' the psychologist Daniel Kahneman said. He had in mind particularly the optimism around public projects, and how spending estimates on infrastructure were always pitched towards the most hopeful end of the spectrum. Hello National Children's Hospital . Then there is utopianism, which can be defined as an ideological attachment to progress or some idealised future. [ Could there be good reason to believe in life after death? Opens in new window ] So defined, it's always good to have some hope. Treat optimism with caution and be very wary of utopianism. Van der Lugt resolves the matter in a different way, saying we should strive to become 'hopeful pessimists'. This aims to take the best of what optimism and pessimism both have to offer. It has the advantage of drawing us away from self-centred hope, and towards the responsibilities we have to our fellow human beings and the wider world. 'If anything, the pessimists have taught me this: with eyes full of that darkness there can still be this strange shattering openness, like a door cracked open, for the good to make its entry into life. Since all things are uncertain, so too is the future, and so there is always the possibility of change for better as there is for worse,' writes Van der Lugt. An exclusive focus on hope can lead us towards passivity and indifference. Better that we are hopeful pessimists who, as Van der Lugt puts it, 'strive for change without certainties, without expecting anything from our efforts other than the knowledge that we have done what we are called upon to do as moral agents in a time of change'.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Dozens of Gazans killed and injured trying get aid, health ministry says
Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured by Israeli fire on their way to collect food aid from distribution hubs in southern Gaza under a controversial new US-backed humanitarian scheme, the besieged enclave's health ministry said. The health ministry said 31 people had been killed with many injured taken to hospitals on Sunday morning after the Israeli military opened fire at crowds heading towards two food distribution stations run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), one of which was closed. The Israel Defense Forces denied this, saying an initial inquiry found it 'did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false'. GHF said reports of deaths and injuries at its distribution site on Sunday were 'untrue and fabricated' and that aid had been distributed 'without incident'. READ MORE 'Our aid was again distributed today without incident,' GHF said, warning of 'rumours being actively fomented by Hamas'. The reports could not be independently verified. Israel – which in March imposed a crushing blockade on Gaza that has pushed the 2.1 million population to the edge of famine – has in recent days allowed limited quantities of aid into the strip via the UN and the GHF-led system. Under the new GHF model, Gazans must travel – in many cases for long distances on foot – to receive boxed meals from distribution hubs secured by US private security contractors and the Israeli military. The hubs are so far located primarily in the south. Since it began operations over the past week, the little-known organisation has set up three distribution hubs in south and central Gaza – although only one, in Tal al-Sultan, has been active over the past three days. The UN and most other humanitarian groups have refused to co-operate, accusing the GHF of having 'weaponised' aid to force the displacement of Palestinians to southern Gaza and violating humanitarian principles. [ Gaza aid foundation chief quits as Israeli air strikes kill dozens Opens in new window ] A UN spokesperson this week described Gaza as 'the hungriest place on earth'. In its first day of operations on Tuesday, the Tal al-Sultan hub was overrun by thousands of desperate people, with dozens injured by gunfire and taken to a Red Cross field hospital near the centre. GHF and Israeli military officials denied at the time that any aid recipients were injured. The killings on Sunday will deepen doubts about GHF's ability to replace the UN, which previously delivered aid to families at local distribution sites. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières on Saturday described the new system as 'disastrous. Ineffective. Dangerous. Reckless. Dehumanising'. Sunday's casualties were taken to the Red Cross-operated field hospital in southern Gaza near the Tal al-Sultan distribution centre, and to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. [ Gaza doctor whose nine children were killed in Israeli strike dies from wounds from same attack Opens in new window ] Victoria Rose, a British plastic surgeon volunteering at Nasser, said in a video that the hospital had received an 'extortionate amount of people' wounded by gunshots. 'It's absolute carnage here,' she said. Israel said the new system was necessary to ensure that Hamas, whose October 7th, 2023, attack on southern Israel triggered the war, was not able to divert aid. According to the GHF, more than 4.7 million meals have been distributed so far to an estimated 67,000 families. Humanitarian officials say they had not seen evidence of systematic diversion of aid under the old UN-led model. Sunday's violence came as efforts to secure a new ceasefire in Gaza, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, faltered. US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Saturday that amendments proposed by Hamas to a potential deal – under which fighting would stop for 60 days, over two dozen Israeli hostages would be released, and aid would flow into the territory – were 'totally unacceptable' . The Palestinian militant group wants any deal to include a guarantee that Israel will fully withdraw its troops from the enclave and permanently end the war, demands that prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government has rejected. Witkoff urged Hamas to accept his framework proposal, which he said would allow the start of 'good-faith negotiations' over a full end to the conflict. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Russia, Ukraine head to Istanbul for fresh peace talks
Russian and Ukrainian officials will meet in Istanbul to exchange their plans for how to end the three-year war, Europe's largest conflict since World War II, after Ukraine says it struck dozens of strategic bombers parked at airbases deep in Russia. Urged on by US President Donald Trump, the countries have opened direct negotiations for the first time since the early weeks of Russia's invasion but have yet to make significant progress towards an elusive agreement. The talks come a day after Ukraine carried out one of its most brazen and successful attacks ever on Russian soil - hitting dozens of strategic bombers parked at airbases thousands of kilometres behind the front line. At the first round of talks in Istanbul last month, they agreed to a large-scale prisoner exchange and to swap notes on what their vision of a peace deal might look like. The second set of negotiations is scheduled to get underway at 11pm Irish time at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, an Ottoman imperial house on the banks of the Bosphorus that is now a luxury five-star hotel. Russia says it will present a "memorandum" of its peace terms, having resisted pressure by Ukraine to send its demands in advance. Despite the flurry of diplomacy, the two sides remain far apart over a possible deal - either for a truce or longer-term settlement. Outlining Ukraine's position ahead of the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refreshed his call for an immediate halt to the fighting. "First - a full and unconditional ceasefire. Second -- the release of prisoners. Third - the return of abducted children," he said in a post on social media. He also called for the sides to discuss a direct meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The key issues can only be resolved by the leaders," Mr Zelensky said. The Kremlin has repeatedly pushed back on that prospect, saying a Putin-Zelensky meeting could only happen after the negotiating delegations reach wider "agreements". Russia has questioned Mr Zelensky's legitimacy throughout the war and repeatedly called for him to be toppled. Russia has said it wants to address the "root causes" of the conflict - language typically used to refer to a mix of sweeping demands including limiting Ukraine's military, banning the country from joining NATO and massive territorial concessions. Ukraine and the West have rejected those calls and cast Russia's assault as nothing but an imperialist land grab. Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia invaded, with swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed and millions forced to flee their homes. War rages on Russia's top negotiator in Istanbul will be Vladimir Medinsky, an ideological Putin aide who led failed talks in 2022, has written school textbooks justifying the invasion and questioned Ukraine's right to exist. Ukraine's team will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, seen as a skilled and pragmatic negotiator, but who has been mired in domestic scandal over alleged abuse of power and a lack of transparency. "Diplomatic advisors" from Germany, France and Britain will be "on the ground... in close coordination with the Ukrainian negotiating team," a German government spokesperson said Sunday. Ukraine said it had damaged some 40 strategic Russian bombers, worth $7 billion, in a major special operation after months of setbacks for the country's military. Ukraine's security service said the plan, 18 months in the making, had involved smuggling drones into Russia which were then launched from near the airbases, thousands of kilometres away from the front lines. Russian troops have meanwhile been advancing on the ground, particularly in the northeastern Sumy region, where Mr Putin ordered his forces to establish a "buffer zone" along the border. Ballistic strikes in the northeastern Kharkiv region yesterday injured at least six people, including a seven-year-old, and damaged a civilian business and a warehouse, Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegubov said on Monday. Ahead of the talks, Russian officials have called for Ukraine to be cut off from Western military support and cede territory still controlled by its army. Ukraine has pushed Russia to agree to a full, unconditional and immediate ceasefire - saying a pause in the fighting is necessary to then discuss what a long-term settlement could look like. Ukraine has refused to formally give up the one-fifth of its territory controlled by Russia, though it has accepted that it may only be able to get some land back through diplomacy, not fighting. It also wants concrete Western-backed security guarantees - like NATO protections or Western troops on the ground - that have also been ruled out by Russia.
