Hamas says it has given a ‘positive’ response to the latest ceasefire proposal in Gaza
By Wafaa Shurafa, Bassem Mroue and Samya Kullab
Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip (AP)-Hamas said on Friday that it had given a “positive” response to the last cease-fire proposal in Gaza, but said that other talks were necessary for implementation.
It was not clear if Hamas’ declaration meant that it had accepted the proposal of US President Donald Trump for a 60-day ceasefire. Hamas asked guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to war, now almost 21 months old. Trump pushed a hard to conclude, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should visit the White House next week to discuss an agreement.
Hamas’ declaration came while Israeli air strikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, while a hospital said that 20 other people died in shooting when he was asking for help.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said it had registered 613 Palestinians killed in the space of Gaza while trying to get help. Most were killed while they were trying to reach food distribution points managed by an American organization supported by the Israelis, while others were massaged while waiting for aid trucks linked to the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, he said.
Current efforts to stop the war
Trump said on Tuesday that Israel agreed on the conditions of a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, during which the United States “would work with all parties to end the war.” He urged Hamas to accept the agreement before the conditions worsen.
In his statement on Friday evening, Hamas said he “submitted his positive response” to Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
He said that he was “fully ready to immediately conclude a series of negotiations concerning the mechanism for the implementation of this framework”. He did not explain what was to be developed in the implementation.
A Hamas official said that the ceasefire could start next week, but he said discussions were needed first to determine how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for each Israeli hostage released and to specify the amount of aid that will enter Gaza during the truce. Hamas said it wanted aid to flow more than the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies. The manager spoke under the cover of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the answer with the press.
The official also said that the negotiations would begin on the first day of the truce on a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli Gaza troops in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. He said Trump guaranteed that the truce will be extended beyond 60 days if necessary for these negotiations to conclude an agreement. There was no confirmation from the United States of such a guarantee.
Series of previous negotiations have been gone on the requests for Hamas guarantees that new negotiations would lead to the end of the war, while Netanyahu insisted that Israel would resume the fighting to ensure the destruction of the group.
“We will see what is going on. We will know in the coming 24 hours,” Trump told journalists on Air Force One Thursday when asked if Hamas had accepted the last frame for a cease-fire.
20 killed Friday while asking for help
Managers of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said that at least three Palestinians were killed on Friday while they were heading for food distribution sites led by the Gaza humanitarian foundation, supported by Israel, in southern Gaza.
Since the GHF began distributions at the end of May, witnesses said almost daily that Israeli troops opened fire to crowds of Palestinians on roads leading to food centers. To reach the sites, people must travel several kilometers through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road.
The Israeli army previously said that it shoots warning shots to control the crowd or among the Palestinians approaching its troops. The GHF has denied serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says that shots outside their immediate vicinity are within the reach of the Israeli army.
Friday, in response to the report of the United Nations Rights Agency, he declared in a statement that he was investigating reports of people killed and injured by asking for help. He said it worked to “minimize the possible friction between the population” and the Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes.
In addition, witnesses said that Israeli troops opened fire to crowds of Palestinians who meet in soldiers controlled by the military to wait for the assistant trucks in Gaza for the UN or other aid organizations not associated with GHF.
On Friday, 17 people were killed while waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis in the Tahliya region, officials from Nasser hospital said.
Three survivors told the AP that they had been waiting for the trucks in a military “red zone” in Khan Younis and that the troops opened fire from a reservoir and drones.
It was a “crowd of people, that God helps them, who want to eat and live,” said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in his leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had caught. “There were direct shots.”
The air strikes also struck the Muwasi region at the southern end of the Mediterranean coast of Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven out of their houses hiding in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital.
The Israeli army said it was examining the reported air strikes on Friday. He made no immediate comments on reported shots surrounding the help trucks.
The UN SHOWS INSTRUCTION TO THE PROTE OF HELP SITE
The spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, Ravina Shamdasani, said that the agency was unable to allocate the murders. But she said, “It is clear that the Israeli army bombed and shot the Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by GHF.
In a message to the Associated Press, Shamdasani said that on the total counted, 509 murders were “linked to the GHF”, which means on or near its distribution sites.
On Friday, in a statement, GHF questioned the victims ‘figures, accusing the UN of taking its victims’ figures “directly from the Ministry of Health of Gaza controlled by Hamas” and of trying to “dirty our efforts”.
Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations Bureau, told AP that data “is based on our own information collection thanks to various reliable sources, including medical organizations, human rights and humanitarian organizations”.
Rik Peeperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization, said that the Nasser Hospital, the largest hospital operating in the south, receives tens or hundreds of victims every day, most of them from the surroundings of food distribution sites.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also said in late June that its field hospital near one of the GHF sites had been overwhelmed more than 20 times in previous months by mass victims, most ball injuries during their path to food distribution sites.
Also Friday, the Israeli army said that two soldiers had been killed in combat in Gaza, one in the north and one in the south. More than 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the war, including more than 400 during the fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli army has also published new evacuation orders on Friday in northeast Khan Younis in southern Gaza and urged Palestinians to move west before the military operations planned against Hamas in the region. The new evacuation zones have pushed the Palestinians into increasingly small spaces near the coast.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the number of Palestinians killed in the territory had exceeded 57,000. The ministry does not make the difference between civilians and combatants in its count, but says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry is managed by health professionals employed by the government of Hamas, and its number is largely quoted by the UN and international organizations.
The war began when terrorists led by Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Hamas has been appointed a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Kullab reported to Jerusalem and Beirut Mroue. The writers of the associated press Jamey Kealen in Geneva, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed.
