Israel ends aid blockade, may end war if Hamas disarms, not destroyed

The offer to end the war without the destruction of Hamas signals a potential breakthrough in ceasefire talks and came as Israel ended its aid blockade on Gaza and launched extensive air strikes.

Displaced Palestinians flee Beit Lahia amid ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Picture: AP.

Israel has said it would allow a “basic amount of food” into Gaza after it showed openness to ending the war in Gaza if Hamas disarms and goes into exile, marking a potential breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations.

The announcement came as Israel launched some of its heaviest bombardment of the strip since the start of the war, killing 103 Palestinians over the weekend, and besieged one of northern Gaza’s hospitals.

Israel said the attacks had taken out the last of Hamas’ leading militants, and announced it had begun “extensive ground operations” throughout northern and southern Gaza.

Later in the day, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said it would “allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis did not develop in the Gaza Strip”. The UN said earlier this week that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were starving after Israel blocked food, medicine and fresh water from entering the strip.

In Qatar, Netanyahu said the latest talks included discussions on a truce and hostage deal as well as a proposal to end the war in return for the exile of Hamas militants and the demilitarisation of the Palestinian territory. These terms have previously been rejected by Hamas.

Netanyahu had previously vowed to continue the war until the group had been eliminated.

“Even at this very moment, the negotiation team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal, whether according to the Witkoff framework or as part of ending the fighting,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday, referencing a previous deal initiated by the US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The deal “would include the release of all the hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip”.

Hamas had not indicated a willingness to set down its weapons before but said over the weekend that the talks were “without preconditions”.

It said Israel’s position “remains unchanged” and officials said the group was “proposing releasing all Israeli hostages in return for an end to the war, the pull-out of Israeli troops, an end to a blockade on aid for Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners”.

The talks in Doha, however, were described as a “facade” by an Israeli official, who told the news website Axios the more substantive talks were centred around a deal Witkoff had presented, taking place through backchanels and focused on the return of 10 hostages in exchange for 45-60 days of ceasefire. Witkoff is thought to be putting pressure on both sides to sign up to the new deal.

His proposal is also believed to include clearer language, compared with previous deals, on how an end to the war can be reached after the ceasefire and giving Hamas assurance that Israel cannot unilaterally decide the ceasefire is over, as it did in March.

In the meantime, Israel has intensified its aerial and ground campaign on the Gaza Strip in preparation for the military occupation of Gaza, leaving a window of opportunity to strike a deal to free the hostages. The Sunday Times revealed that the military proposed to cordon off large areas exclusively for the army, restricting the movement of civilians within three separate districts inside Gaza should talks collapse.

The Hamas-run health ministry said that 464 Palestinians were killed in the past week, including many women and children, with more than a thousand wounded in some of the heaviest fire yet.

The IDF said on Sunday that it hit more than 670 Hamas targets this week to support its ground operation. It said troops were deployed in “key positions” in the north and south of the strip, “as part of Gideon’s Chariots”, the name given to the ground campaign.

Palestinian officials said that staff and patients at the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza came under heavy fire, “preventing the arrival of patients, medical staff and supplies”.

In the aftermath of the bombardments, Israeli sources said much of Hamas’s internal command, led by Mohammed Sinwar, had “likely” been eliminated in a strike on a tunnel in Khan Younis in southern Gaza last week. Reports stated that Sinwar was found dead alongside a number of his close circle, including the Rafah Brigade commander, Muhammad Shabana.

“There’s no official confirmation but according to all the indications, Mohammad Sinwar was eliminated,” Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, told the foreign affairs and defence committee.

If confirmed, the decision-making has been taken out of the hands of hardline militants in Gaza and the final say on talks with Israel may lie with the exiled political leadership.

Ceasefire talks have been stalled since Israel resumed its offensive in early March, blocking aid and bombarding the strip before a plan to put Gaza under military control. The Witkoff plan has had various reiterations over the past few months but it works off a 40-day ceasefire in exchange for half the living hostages.

Twenty hostages are believed to still be alive in captivity after dozens of hostages were released earlier this year in the previous deal. The American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander was freed in a goodwill gesture to the US earlier this week.

On Saturday night Israelis took part in a weekly protest in central Tel Aviv to urge the return of the remaining 58 hostages, including those killed in captivity or dragged into Gaza already dead. The former hostage Mia Shem told a crowd that Trump had shown it was possible to free those Hamas took captive in its assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.

“I am speaking for all my brothers and sisters who are still in Gaza, still in hell. This week we saw the release of Edan Alexander. He was released because President Trump made it happen,” Shem, who was released during the first ceasefire, said.

The Houthi rebel group in Yemen hit out at Tel Aviv on Saturday night as the country sat to watch its Eurovision entry finish second in the Eurovision song contest, firing a missile that was intercepted by the Israeli air force. The Iran-backed group said it would not stop until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.

Earlier in the week, Trump announced the US would stop bombing Houthi targets because the militant group had “capitulated”.

Katz warned that the Houthis would “suffer painful blows and we will also strike the heads of terror just as we did to [the Palestinian militant Mohammed] Deif and the Sinwars [brothers] in Gaza, to [Hassan] Nasrallah in Beirut and [Ismail] Haniyeh in Tehran” if they continue to fire missiles.

The Times