Gaza truce talks faltering over Israeli withdrawal plans
Cairo/Jerusalem/Gaza: Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha say.
The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire were nonetheless expected to continue, the sources said.
In Gaza, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said at least 31 people trying to get food aid were killed on Saturday when Israeli troops opened fire, the latest mass shooting around a US-backed aid distribution system that the United Nations says has resulted in 800 people killed in six weeks.
Palestinians carry bags containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.Credit: AP
Witnesses described people being shot in the head and torso. Reuters saw several bodies of victims wrapped in white shrouds as family members wept at Nasser Hospital.
The Israeli military said its troops had fired warning shots towards people it said were behaving suspiciously, but that its review of the incident had found no evidence of anyone hurt by its soldiers’ fire.
Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in Qatar for a week in a renewed push for an agreement that envisages a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals and discussions on ending the 21-month war.
US President Donald Trump, who hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past week, had said he hoped for a deal soon. But the Israeli and Palestinian sources described longstanding issues that remain unresolved.
A Palestinian source said that Hamas had rejected withdrawal maps proposed by Israel that would leave around 40 per cent of Gaza under Israeli control, including all of the southern area of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza.
Two Israeli sources said Hamas wanted Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March.
The Palestinian source said matters regarding aid and guarantees on an end to the war were also presenting a challenge. The crisis could be resolved with more US intervention, the source said.
Hamas has long demanded an agreement to end the war before it would free remaining hostages; Israel has insisted it would end the fighting only when all hostages are released and Hamas is dismantled as a fighting force and administration in Gaza.
Saturday’s reported mass shooting near an aid distribution point in Rafah was the latest in a series of such incidents that the United Nations rights office said on Friday had seen at least 798 people killed trying to get food in six weeks.
“We were sitting there, and suddenly there was shooting towards us. For five minutes, we were trapped under fire. The shooting was targeted. It was not random. Some people were shot in the head, some in the torso, one guy next to me was shot directly in the heart,” eyewitness Mahmoud Makram told Reuters.
“There is no mercy there, no mercy. People go because they are hungry, but they die and come back in body bags.”
Sumaya al-Sha’er’s 17-year-old son, Nasir, was among those killed, hospital officials said.
“He said to me, ‘Mum, you don’t have flour and today I’ll go and bring you flour, even if I die, I’ll go and get it’,” she told AP. “But he never came back home.”
After partially lifting a total blockade of all goods into Gaza in late May, Israel launched a new aid distribution system, relying on a group backed by the United States to distribute food under the protection of Israeli troops.
The UN has rejected the system as inherently dangerous and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles. Israel says it is necessary to keep militants from diverting aid.
Elsewhere, airstrikes in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah killed 13, including four children, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Fifteen others were killed in Khan Younis in the south, according to Nasser Hospital. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Intense airstrikes continued Saturday evening in the area of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people and abducted 251 in their October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the war. Hamas still holds some 50 hostages, with at least 20 believed to remain alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 57,800 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
Palestinian-American killed in the West Bank
Meanwhile, friends and relatives paid their respects a day after Palestinian-American Seifeddin Musalat and local friend Mohammed al-Shalabi were killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Musalat was beaten to death by Israeli settlers on his family’s land, his cousin Diana Halum said. The settlers then blocked paramedics from reaching him, she said.
Musalat, born in Florida, was visiting his family home. His family wants the US State Department to investigate his death and hold the settlers accountable. The State Department said it was aware of the reports of his death but had no comment out of respect for the family.
A witness speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid Israeli retaliation said the settlers descended on Palestinian lands and “started shooting at us, beating by sticks and throwing rocks”.
Israel’s military has said Palestinians hurled rocks at Israelis in the area earlier on Friday, lightly wounding two people and setting off a larger confrontation.
Palestinians and rights groups have long accused the military of ignoring settler violence, which has spiked – along with Palestinian attacks and Israeli military raids – since the war in Gaza began.
Reuters, AP
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