US presents Israel-approved cease-fire deal to Hamas that could end Gaza war
The US has extended a ceasefire deal to Hamas with Israel’s approval after two previous attempts to broker agreements with the terror group fell through. Follow updates.
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The US has extended a cease-fire deal to Hamas with Israel’s approval after two previous attempts by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to broker agreements with the terror group fell through.
“I can confirm that Special Envoy Witkoff and the president submitted a cease-fire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed and supported. Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shared news of the proposal with families of hostages still held in Gaza, according to Reuters.
Should Hamas accept the terms, details of which are not yet known, it could bring about the end of the war that has raged in Gaza since the Iran-backed terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage.
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ISRAEL EXPANDS WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS
Israel announced on Thursday the creation of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, putting further strain on relations with the international community already taxed by the war in Gaza.
Both Britain and neighbouring Jordan slammed the move, with London calling it a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and are seen as one of the main obstacles to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
The decision to establish more, taken by the country’s security cabinet, was announced by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, and Defence Minister Israel Katz, who is in charge of managing the communities.
“We have made a historic decision for the development of settlements: 22 new communities in Judea and Samaria, renewing settlement in the north of Samaria, and reinforcing the eastern axis of the State of Israel,” Smotrich said on X, using the Israeli terms for the southern and northern West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
“Next step: sovereignty!” he added.
PALESTINIANS STORM UN FOOD WAREHOUSE; 4 DEAD
Four people have died as hundreds of hungry and desperate Palestinians rushed into a United Nations food warehouse in southern Gaza.
Two were fatally crushed and two others died of gunshot wounds after the crowd forced its way into the World Food Programme warehouse in Deir al-Balah, tearing off pieces of the building to get inside.
Footage showed crowds breaking into the food hub and taking bags and cartons of food supplies as gunshots rang out.
“Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the World Food Programme said in a statement on X.
“Initial reports indicate two people died and several were injured in the tragic incident,” it said, adding: “WFP is still confirming details.”
Intense criticism has been levelled at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
The UN condemned the US-backed aid system in Gaza after 47 people were injured during a chaotic food distribution on Wednesday when thousands of Palestinians desperate for food rushed into a GHF aid distribution site.
Footage of the moment the aid distribution center in Tel Sultan was overrun by thousands of Gazans. According to Israeli security sources, the IDF did not fire from the air but fired warning shots in the air, adding that the U.S. security company regained control over the site. https://t.co/mDbeaHRgRLpic.twitter.com/vbWS2DeCFv
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) May 27, 2025
A Palestinian medical source said at least one had died.
The Israeli military said soldiers did not fire at civilians. “WFP urgently calls for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access to enable orderly food distributions across Gaza immediately,” its statement said.
‘OUTRAGE’: ALBO SLAMS ISRAEL’S AID BLOCKAGE
Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza is “an outrage”, Anthony Albanese said, calling the Israeli government stopping critical food and medical supplies into the Palestinian territory “completely untenable”.
Mr Albanese said he told Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, of Australia’s deep concern over the blocking of aid into the Palestinian territory.
In a press conference on Monday morning, Mr Albanese said: “Israel’s actions are completely unacceptable.”
“It is outrageous that there be a blockade of food and supplies to people who are in need in Gaza … People are starving. The idea that a democratic state withholds supply is an outrage.”
Rescuers looking for survivors among the rubble inside a destroyed building
Israeli strikes over past 24 hours have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, Palestinian officials say
Australia has joined 22 other nations in condemning Israel over its decision to limit aid into Gaza, in a joint statement signed by the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s civil defence agency said the death toll from an Israeli strike Monday on school turned shelter for displaced people had risen to 33.
Dozens are injured, mostly children, including several women, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said
In Gaza City, Bassal said that 60 people were wounded in the “horrific occupation massacre at the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school” at dawn, where hundreds of people were sheltering.
The Israeli military said it had “struck key terrorists who were operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre embedded in an area that previously served as the ‘Faami Aljerjawi’ School in the Gaza City area”, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.
FURY AFTER HAMAS TRUCE TREACHERY
Hamas appears to have tried to pull a bait-and-switch on the latest ceasefire deal by altering the terms of the proposal that were sent to the terror group, according to President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Hamas claimed on Monday that it had been presented with a new US proposal that would see a 70-day ceasefire and the release of five live hostages on the first and final days of the truce, a Hamas-tied Palestinian official told Reuters.
The deal Hamas claimed to have received would also include a partial withdrawal Israeli from the Gaza Strip, the official said. This supposed deal would also include the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, many serving lengthy prison sentences.
But a “disappointed” Witkoff blasted Hamas, claiming that the terms of the deal he had actually sent to Hamas were very different from their response.
The latest Witkoff proposal includes the release of 10 living and 19 dead hostages in return for 45 to 60 days of ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
“What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable,” Witkoff, a New York real estate billionaire, told Axios.
He said Israel agreed to the terms of the deal he proposed, and that it would offer a path to a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
STRIKES KILL MOTHER AND UNBORN CHILD, RED CROSS STAFF
Rescuers in Gaza said 22 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli air strikes across the Palestinian territory on Sunday.
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said seven people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.
Some people were still under the debris, he added.
Two more people, including a woman who was seven months pregnant, were killed in an attack targeting tents sheltering displaced people around Nuseirat in central Gaza, he said, adding doctors were unable to save the unborn child.
Also killed were the civil defence’s director of operations Ashraf Abu Nar and his wife, after a strike on their home in Nuseirat, according to Bassal.
Fatal strikes were also recorded around Deir el-Balah, Beit Lahia, and Khan Younis where two Red Cross workers were killed in a strike on their home.
“We are heartbroken by the death of two dear colleagues, Ibrahim Eid and Ahmad Abu Hilal,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a social media statement.
GAZA DOCTOR LOSES 9 OF HER 10 CHILDREN IN STRIKE
An Israeli strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed nine children of a pair of married doctors, with the Israeli army saying it was reviewing the reports.
Israel has stepped up its campaign in Gaza in recent days, drawing international criticism as well as calls to allow in more supplies after it partially eased a total blockade on aid imposed on March 2.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the agency had retrieved “the bodies of nine child martyrs, some of them charred, from the home of Dr Hamdi al-Najjar and his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, all of whom were their children”.
He added that Hamdi al-Najjar and another son, Adam, were also seriously wounded in the strike, and that the family was taken to Nasser Hospital. A medical source at the hospital gave Adam’s age as 10 years old.
Muneer Alboursh, director general of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said on X that the strike happened shortly after Hamdi Al-Najjar returned home from driving his wife, a pediatric specialist, to work at the same facility.
– with AFP
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Originally published as US presents Israel-approved cease-fire deal to Hamas that could end Gaza war
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