Israel-Hamas war updates: Hamas proposes new truce; 200 tonnes of food arrives in Gaza
A barge carrying 200 tonnes of food for displaced Palestinians has arrived as part of a goal of creating a “highway of aid”, as Hamas proposes a new truce. Follow updates. Warning: Graphic
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A first aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in Gaza on Friday (local time) as Hamas proposed a new six-week truce in the war.
Footage showed the Open Arms, which set sail from Cyprus on Tuesday, towing a barge that the Spanish charity of the same name says is loaded with 200 tonnes of food for Gazans threatened with famine after more than five months of war.
World Central Kitchen, the US charity working with Open Arms, said it was readying another boat with supplies of beans, canned meat, flour, rice and dates in the Cypriot port of Larnaca but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.
“Our ambition is having a highway of aid going into Gaza,” the group’s Juan Camilo Jimenez said in a video posted on social media platform X.
The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to “secure the area” around the jetty while the cargo of aid was unloaded. The “vessel underwent a comprehensive security inspection,” it said.
A spokesman for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.
Witnesses reported air strikes and fighting in the southern Gaza Strip’s main city Khan Yunis as well as areas of the north where humanitarian conditions have been particularly dire.
As Muslim worshippers marked the first Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, thousands attended prayers in the revered Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, amid a heavy security presence and restrictions on entry.
“It’s the first year I see so many forces (police), and their eyes... Two years ago, I could argue with them, but now... they’re giving us no chance,” said Amjad Ghalib, a 44-year-old carpenter.
In southern Gaza’s Rafah, the last major population centre yet to be subjected to a ground assault, AFPTV footage showed worshippers praying by the rubble of a destroyed mosque.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he had approved the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah, where most of the Gaza Strip’s population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.
The White House, which has said an assault on Rafah would be a “red line” without credible civilian protection plans, said it had not seen the plan approved by Netanyahu.
“We certainly would welcome the opportunity to see it,” National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the United States could not support any plan without “credible” proposals to shelter more than one million Gazans.
HAMAS PROPOSES NEW TRUCE
In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas has put forward a new proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group told AFP.
Hamas would want this to lead to “a complete (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire”, the official said.
The proposal would involve the release of some 42 hostages, who would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners at a ratio of between 20 and 50 prisoners per hostage, the official said, down from a previous proposal of roughly 100 to one.
Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the Hamas attack of October 7, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 32 presumed dead.
Israel said it was sending a delegation to Qatar for a new round of negotiations.
The White House said it was “cautiously optimistic” about the chances for a ceasefire but stressed that talks were far from over.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that things are moving in the right direction,” Mr Kirby said, adding that the Hamas proposal was “within the bounds” of what negotiators had been discussing in recent months.
The United States, which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has grown increasingly critical of Netanyahu over his handling of the war.
US Senate leader Chuck Schumer called for a snap Israeli election, describing Netanyahu as one of several “major obstacles” to peace in a speech praised by US President Joe Biden.
“I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans,” Biden said.
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party retorted that Israel was “not a banana republic but an independent and proud democracy”.
DIRE SHORTAGES LEAVE MANY SCRAMBLING FOR SCRAPS IN GAZA
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday that Israeli fire killed 20 people and wounded 155 waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged territory, but Israel said the reports were “erroneous”.
With the United Nations warning of a looming famine in Gaza, besieged by Israel after the October 7 attack by Hamas militants, a Spanish aid ship sailed closer to the Gaza coast opening a maritime corridor from Cyprus.
Efforts to get food and other aid into Gaza have grown, including by air and sea, but fighting rages on after mediators failed to reach a truce for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The health ministry in Gaza accused Israeli troops of opening fire from “tanks and helicopters” as Palestinians gathered at a roundabout in Gaza City in the north, revising upward an initial toll of 11 killed and 100 wounded.
Mohammed Ghurab, director of emergency services at a hospital in northern Gaza, told AFP there were “direct shots by the occupation forces” on people waiting for a food truck.
A witness reported seeing several bodies and people who had been shot.
The Israeli military denied it had opened fire on the crowd.
“Press reports that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans at an aid distribution point are erroneous,” it said in a brief statement, adding that it was “analyzing the incident seriously”.
The humanitarian emergency has forced some countries to use airdrops and sea routes for aid supplies because of limited land access to Gaza via Jordan, Israel and Egypt.
The Spanish aid vessel Open Arms, towing about 200 tonnes of food supplied by the US NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), was about 30 kilometres (20 miles) off Gaza, the MarineTraffic website showed, after it left Cyprus three days earlier.
A WCK team in Gaza has built a floating jetty onto which cargo destined for people in northern Gaza can be unloaded. The group’s president Erin Gore said they hoped to unload about 300,000 meals as soon as possible.
“We all know it’s not enough... that’s why we have to open this corridor with a continuous flow of boats,” Gore said.
Cyprus has said a second, bigger vessel was being readied for the maritime aid corridor, which will be complemented by a temporary pier to be built off Gaza by US troops.
However, the air and sea missions are “no alternative” to land deliveries, 25 organisations including Amnesty International and Oxfam said in a statement.
Dire shortages have left many scrambling for scraps of aid, including Mokhles al-Masry, a displaced 27-year-old who was among many Palestinians in northern Gaza scanning the skies for signs of an aid drop.
“There is no food, nothing to feed our children. We can’t even find a bottle of baby milk. We’ve been wandering around since early morning, hoping that a plane would drop parachutes,” he said.
Amnesty’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said the decision to build the pier suggested that the international community seemed to accept that the war would drag on.
NETANYAHU DOUBLES DOWN ON THREAT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected international pressure and doubled down on his pledge to launch a ground assault on Rafah in the south, where most of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million has sought refuge.
“I will continue to repel the pressures and we will enter Rafah... and bring complete victory to the people of Israel,” Netanyahu said during a visit to a field intelligence base.
Around 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt in and around Rafah.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said this week a “significant” number of them would need to be moved “to a humanitarian island that we will create with the international community”.
AUSTRALIA’S BIG CALL FOR WALL-RAVAGED GAZA
Australia will unpause its $6m in funding to the United Nation’s “life saving” aid agency in Gaza, more than a month after it suspended its support and amid growing concerns about the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Australia was among more than a dozen donor countries that paused funding to UNRWA in late January after Israel alleged 12 staff members were involved in the Hamas attacks.
On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said the government was satisfied that UNRWA itself was not a terrorist organisation, and that additional safeguards would “sufficiently protect” Australian taxpayer funding.
“On that basis, and after consideration by the national security committee this week, Australia is unpausing our contribution to UNRWA,” Senator Wong said.
“There are two facts a responsible government can’t ignore in relation to UNRWA. They do life-saving work and the recent allegations were grave.
“So the decision I am announcing today is the result of the Australian government working together with our partners to rebuild confidence, to establish ongoing diligence about the use of aid money generously given by the Australian people.”
Senator Wong also announced an additional $4m to UNICEF to provide urgent services, and $2m to an arm of the UN dedicated to facilitating expanded humanitarian access into Gaza.
Australia will also support efforts by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to assist with the delivery of “vital humanitarian aid” to civilians in Gaza, and would deliver 140 ADF aerial delivery parachutes for use in humanitarian assistance drops.
Senator Wong called on Israel to cooperate with efforts to allow more food and aid into Gaza “now”.
Canada, Sweden and the European Union have all resumed their funding in recent weeks, while there are concerns the United States’ ongoing pause could become permanent.
The funding pause impacted the $6m in “top-up” funding Senator Wong had announced in mid-January, and did not impact the $20m in core funding already delivered before the accusations arose.
The peak association for Jewish Australians slammed the government's decision, labelling it as “wrong” and said Labor needed to fund “another way” to feed the Gazans.
US LEADER SLAMS NETANYAHU
The leader of the US Senate has identified Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace in the Middle East and called for the Israeli government to hold new elections in a speech suggesting that Netanyahu risked making the US ally a “pariah” in the eyes of the world.
“At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government,” Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer - the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the United States - said in a floor speech.
He warned that if Netanyahu’s coalition continued to pursue “dangerous and inflammatory” policies after the war, the United States would look at playing “a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.”
Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in US history, said Netanyau had surrounded himself with right-wing extremists and “has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”
“Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” Schumer said.
“There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7.”
Schumer said Netanyahu was one of four “major obstacles” to a two-state solution and peace, alongside Hamas and its Palestinian supporters, radical right-wing Israelis and the Palestinian Authority’s leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The speech came amid increased pressure from US President Joe Biden on the Netanyahu government over the mounting death toll in Gaza.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 31,341 people have been killed in the territory during more than five months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants, and 73,134 people have been wounded in Gaza.
The United States sanctioned three Israeli settlers and two farming outposts on Thursday, accusing them of being involved in “undermining stability in the West Bank.” The move marks the second time this year that Washington has sanctioned Israeli settlers, as it looks to respond to the rise in West Bank settler violence since Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
It comes as an Israeli general leading troops in Gaza delivered rare public criticism of the country’s political leadership.
Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, head of the 98th division deployed in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, was summoned by military leadership for comments, which breached a long-standing taboo on uniformed officers publicly wading into politics.
“You must be worthy of us,” Goldfus said of his country’s leaders, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.
He called for Israeli politicians “to push aside the extreme, and adopt togetherness”.
The general vowed that military commanders and soldiers would take responsibility for their actions.
Addressing Israel’s political leaders, Goldfus called on them to ensure that “everyone takes part” in enlisting in the armed forces, in an apparent reference to ultra-Orthodox Israeli men being exempt from national service.
Most Jewish men are required by law to serve in the Israeli military, but members of the ultra-Orthodox minority - known in Hebrew as Haredim - have long been given sweeping exemptions.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, public frustration over the exemption has resurfaced, adding pressure on Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which relies on ultra-Orthodox allies staunchly opposed to drafting Haredi men.
ISRAEL TO SEND PALESTINIANS TO ‘HUMANITARIAN ISLANDS’
Israel has revealed plans to shift displaced Palestinians trapped in Rafah to “humanitarian islands” in the centre of the city ahead of a planned ground operation.
Humanitarian groups have warned that a Rafah offensive would be a catastrophe as the territory houses 1.4 million displaced Palestinians. But Israel has vowed to go ahead with its plan in its war on Hamas.
Israel Defense Force Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said those in Rafah would be evacuated in co-ordination with international actors, according to The Times of Israel.
He said the islands would have temporary housing, food, water and other essentials.
He did not give a timeline but said it would be co-ordinated with neighbouring Egypt.
It comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said protecting and aiding civilians must be “job number one” for Israel in the Gaza Strip.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” Mr Blinken told reporters after a virtual meeting with ministers on a new maritime corridor for aid into Gaza.
“We look to the government of Israel to make sure this is a priority. Protecting civilians, getting people the assistance they need, that has to be job number one, even as they do what is necessary to defend the country and to deal with the threat posed by Hamas,” he said.
Mr Blinken spoke with his counterparts from Britain, Cyprus, the European Union, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on an initiative announced last week for the US military to build a temporary pier in the Mediterranean to bring in aid.
UN SAYS ISRAEL STRUCK GAZA WAREHOUSE, KILLING WORKER
The main UN aid agency in war-ravaged Gaza said an Israeli strike Wednesday hit one of its warehouses, killing an employee, as calls intensified for land routes to bring food into the besieged territory.
“At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah” in southern Gaza, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in a statement.
The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said the “attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine”.
Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts to rush food to the impoverished territory of 2.4 million people, where more than five months of war have caused mass civilian deaths and reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland.
Efforts to open a maritime corridor or air drop aid over Gaza were “no alternative to aid delivery by land” as they could only provide a fraction of the needs, said a joint statement by 25 organisations including Amnesty International and Oxfam.
Troops were also engaged in “close-quarter combat” in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where strikes had killed 17 militants.
Israel’s withering bombardment and ground offensive have killed 31,045 people, mostly women and children.
It has also said at least 23 children have died from malnutrition and dehydration.
– with AFP
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Originally published as Israel-Hamas war updates: Hamas proposes new truce; 200 tonnes of food arrives in Gaza
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