[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

As Gaza nears erasure, will the world still keep looking away?

Palestine’s plight demands immediate global actions

www.thedailystar.net

As Gaza nears erasure, will the world still keep looking away?
Palestine’s plight demands immediate global actions

VISUAL: STAR

The world has likely never witnessed horrors of the kind we are now seeing in Palestine—not, at least, since the end of World War II. According to Gaza's health ministry, over 56,300 people have died in Gaza since Israel launched its latest campaign against the Palestinians in October 2023. But even that figure appears to be greatly understated, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz. The newspaper estimates that nearly 100,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which represents about four percent of its population.

According to Haaretz, in addition to the high number of deaths directly caused by Israeli attacks, many have also died from indirect effects such as hunger, cold, and disease amid the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system. Earlier, the World Health Organization reported that at least 94 percent of all hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed as a result of Israel's continued aggression. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that the death toll is much higher than the ministry's estimate.

Only last week, 400 people were killed and over 3,000 wounded during an "aid" operation. As starving civilians gathered for aid in massive numbers, Israeli troops opened fire, killing dozens as they tried to collect a few kilos of flour or canned goods. Palestinians have dubbed this "the hunger games." That people are willing to risk their lives to collect aid, despite knowing the brutality that awaits them, is an indication of the level of desperation and destitution they have been reduced to.

The Haaretz report was based on a study conducted by Prof Michael Spagat, a leading expert on mortality in violent conflicts. His findings suggest that 56 percent of those killed have been either children under the age of 18 or women—an exceptional figure compared to almost every other conflict since World War II. Moreover, while the overall number of war victims in Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan may be higher in absolute terms, Gaza appears to rank first both in the ratio of combatants to non-combatants killed, and in the death rate relative to population size. These are staggering findings that clearly reveal the severity of the war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

It is apparent that Israel is on the verge of completely eradicating—or displacing—the remaining population from Gaza and, perhaps eventually, from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. While this is unfolding, US President Donald Trump recently stated that he believes a ceasefire could be reached within a week. The unfortunate reality, however, is that we have heard such rhetoric many times before. The fact remains that Israel has continued its genocidal campaign with both direct and indirect support from the West, including the US. This must stop.

The West must abandon its double standards regarding whose human rights matter, and compel Israel to end its aggression. A permanent solution to the Gaza crisis must be found by recognising and ensuring full autonomy for a Palestinian state.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli forces kill over 50 as ceasefire calls mount, Gaza rescuers say

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 51 people on Monday, including 24 at a seafront rest area, as fresh calls grew for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory. The swift resolution of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran has revived hopes for a halt to the...

en.prothomalo.com

Israeli forces kill over 50 as ceasefire calls mount, Gaza rescuers say

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 56,531 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.

AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Published: 01 Jul 2025, 08: 31

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 51 people on Monday, including 24 at a seafront rest area, as fresh calls grew for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

The swift resolution of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran has revived hopes for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, where more than 20 months of combat have created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million.

US President Donald Trump has recently urged Israel to “make the deal in Gaza”, while key mediator Qatar said Monday that “momentum” had been created by the truce with Iran last week.

But on the ground, Israel has continued to pursue its offensive across the Palestinian territory in a bid to destroy the militant group Hamas.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said 51 people had been killed by Israeli forces on Monday, including 24 in a strike on a rest area on Gaza City’s seafront.

“The place is always crowded with people because the rest area offers drinks, family seating and internet access,” eyewitness Ahmed Al-Nayrab, 26, told AFP, recalling a “huge explosion that shook the area”.

“I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned... It was a scene that made your skin crawl.”

Another eyewitness, Bilal Awkal, 35, said “blood covered the ground and screams filled the air”.

“Women and children were everywhere, like a scene from a movie about the end of the world.”

Approached for comment by AFP, the Israeli army said it was “looking into” the reports.

The Hamas government media office reported that photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab was among those killed in the strike.

Israeli restrictions on media in Gaza and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and authorities in the territory.

‘Targeting was deliberate’

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 27 others were killed by Israeli strikes or fire across Gaza, including 11 near aid points in the centre and south.

Eyewitnesses and local authorities have reported repeated killings of Palestinians near distribution centres in recent weeks, after Israel began allowing in a trickle of aid at the end of May.

Samir Abu Jarbou, 28, told AFP by phone that he had gone with relatives to pick up food in an area of central Gaza around midnight.

“Suddenly the (Israeli) army opened fire, and drones started shooting. We ran away and got nothing,” he said.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, the dead and wounded were rushed to a hospital in an open-top trailer after aid seekers said they were fired on by Israeli forces in Rafah.

“The targeting was deliberate, aimed at people as they were leaving,” eyewitness Aboud al-Adwi told AFP.

“There was no one among us who was wanted or posed any threat. We were all civilians, simply trying to get food for our children,” he added.

AFP footage from Nasser Hospital showed the wounded being treated on a blood-stained floor.

The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment when asked by AFP about the civil defence reports.

‘No longer any benefit’

Netanyahu had said on Sunday that Israel’s “victory” over Iran had created “opportunities”, including for freeing hostages.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, meanwhile, called for an end to the fighting in the territory on Monday, saying there was “no longer any benefit” to the war.

“We now face the completion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve its objectives -- foremost among them, the release of all hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said during a meeting with Netanyahu and the army’s general staff.

Trump had said on Friday that he was hoping for a new ceasefire in Gaza “within the next week”. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is in Washington this week for talks with US officials.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari told journalists on Monday that “momentum” had been created by the Iran-Israel ceasefire on 24 June, but that “we won’t hold our breath for this to happen today and tomorrow”.

Israel launched its campaign in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the assault, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 56,531 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.​

 

[Saif]

ttps://www.newagebd.net/post/north-america/268804/trump-hopes-for-gaza-ceasefire-sometime-next-week

Trump hopes for Gaza ceasefire ‘sometime next week’
Agence France-Presse . Washington 02 July, 2025, 00:16

The United States is pushing for a truce in Gaza by ‘sometime next week,’ US president Donald Trump said Tuesday.

The Republican leader was asked by reporters if a ceasefire in the devastating war between Israel and Palestinians could be in place before a visit by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, set for July 7.

‘We hope it’s going to happen, and we’re looking for it to happen sometime next week,’ Trump responded as he departed Washington for Florida.

The swift resolution of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran has revived hopes for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, where more than 20 months of combat have created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million.

Trump has previously urged Israel to ‘make the deal in Gaza,’ but on the ground, Israel has continued to pursue its offensive across the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s military said Tuesday that it had expanded its operations in Gaza, where residents reported fierce gunfire and shelling.

Israel’s campaign to destroy the Palestinian group Hamas has continued unabated, however, with Gaza’s civil defence agency reporting Israeli forces killed 17 people on Tuesday.

In response to reports of deadly strikes in the north and south of the territory, the Israeli army said it was ‘operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities’.

Separately, it said Tuesday morning that in recent days it had ‘expanded its operations to additional areas within the Gaza Strip, eliminating dozens of terrorists, and dismantling hundreds of terror infrastructure sites both above and below ground’.

Raafat Halles, 39, from the Shujaiya district of Gaza City district, said ‘air strikes and shelling have intensified over the past week’, and tanks have been advancing.

‘I believe that every time negotiations or a potential ceasefire are mentioned, the army escalates crimes and massacres on the ground,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why.’

Amer Daloul, a 44-year-old resident of Gaza City, also reported fiercer clashes between Israeli forces and militants in recent days, telling AFP that he and his family were forced to flee the tent they were living in at dawn on Tuesday ‘due to heavy and random gunfire and shelling’.

In the southern city of Rafah, resident Mohammed Abdel Aal, 41, said ‘tanks are present’ in most parts of town.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that eight people were killed near aid distribution sites in central and southern Gaza Tuesday, in the latest in a long-running spate of deadly attacks on those seeking food.

One person was killed and 50 wounded when tanks and drones opened fire as crowds were waiting to collect aid near the Wadi Gaza Bridge in the middle of the territory, Bassal said.

The civil defence said another six people were killed nearby while trying to reach the same aid centre.

Asked for comment, the Israeli military said its forces ‘fired warning shots to distance suspects who approached the troops’, adding it was not aware of any injuries but would review the incident.

At least one more person was killed near another aid centre in Rafah, the civil defence said.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers.

A group of 169 aid organisations called Monday for an end to Gaza’s ‘deadly’ new US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution scheme, which they said forced starving civilians to ‘trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent, chaotic race’ for food.

They urged a return to the UN-led aid mechanism that existed until March, when Israel imposed a full blockade on humanitarian assistance entering Gaza during an impasse in truce talks with Hamas.

The new scheme’s administrator, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has distanced itself from reports of aid seekers being killed near its centres.

The Israeli army said it had also opened a review into a strike on a seafront Gaza cafe on Monday that it said had targeted militants.

The civil defence agency reported that the attack killed 24 people.

Maher Al-Baqa, 40, the brother of the owner of the cafe, said that several of his relatives including two nephews were killed in the strike.

‘It’s one of the most well-known cafes on the Gaza coast, frequented by educated youth, journalists, artists, doctors, engineers and hardworking people,’ he said.

‘They used to feel free and safe there — it was like a second home to them.’

The military maintained it had taken steps ‘to mitigate the risk of harming civilians using aerial surveillance’.

Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said the group is ‘ready to agree to any proposal if it will lead to an end to the war and a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of occupation forces’.

‘So far, there has been no breakthrough.’​

 

[Saif]

Gaza’s hunger games

ISRAEL’S weaponization of starvation is how genocides always end. I covered the insidious effects of orchestrated starvation in the Guatemalan Highlands during the genocidal campaign of General Efraín Ríos Montt, the famine in southern Sudan that left a quarter of a million dead — I walked past...

www.newagebd.net

Gaza’s hunger games
Chris Hedges 02 July, 2025, 00:00

ISRAEL’S weaponization of starvation is how genocides always end. I covered the insidious effects of orchestrated starvation in the Guatemalan Highlands during the genocidal campaign of General Efraín Ríos Montt, the famine in southern Sudan that left a quarter of a million dead — I walked past the frail and skeletal corpses of families lining roadsides — and later during the war in Bosnia when Serbs cut off food supplies to enclaves such as Srebrencia and Goražde.

Starvation was weaponized by the Ottoman Empire to decimate the Armenians. It was used to kill millions of Ukrainians in the Holodomor in 1932 and 1933. It was employed by the Nazis against the Jews in the ghettos in World War II. German soldiers used food, as Israel does, like bait. They offered three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade to lure desperate families in the Warsaw Ghetto onto transports to the death camps. ‘There were times when hundreds of people had to wait in line for several days to be “deported”,’ Marek Edelman writes in ‘The Ghetto Fights.’ ‘The number of people anxious to obtain the three kilograms of bread was such that the transports, now leaving twice daily with 12,000 people, could not accommodate them all.’ And when crowds became unruly, as in Gaza, the German troops fired deadly volleys that ripped through emaciated husks of women, children and the elderly.

This tactic is as old as warfare itself.

The report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, that Israeli soldiers are ordered to shoot into crowds of Palestinians at aid hubs, with 580 killed and 4,216 wounded, is not a surprise. It is the predictable denouement of the genocide, the inevitable conclusion to a campaign of mass extermination.

Israel, with its targeted assassinations of at least 1,400 healthcare workers, hundreds of United Nations workers, journalists, police and even poets and academics, its obliteration of multi-story apartment blocks wiping out dozens of families, its shelling of designated ‘humanitarian zones’ where Palestinians huddle under tents, tarps or in the open air, its systematic targeting of UN food distribution centres, bakeries and aid convoys or its sadistic sniper fire that guns down children, long ago illustrated that Palestinians are regarded as vermin worthy only of annihilation.

The blockade of food and humanitarian aid, imposed on Gaza since March 2, is reducing Palestinians to abject dependence. To eat, they must crawl towards their killers and beg. Humiliated, terrified, desperate for a few scraps of food, they are stripped of dignity, autonomy and agency. This is by intent.

Yousef al-Ajouri, 40, explained to Middle East Eye his nightmarish journey to one of four aid hubs set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The hubs are not designed to meet the needs of the Palestinians, who once relied on 400 aid distribution sites, but to lure them from northern Gaza to the south. Israel, which on Sunday again ordered Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, is steadily expanding its annexation of the coastal strip. Palestinians are corralled like livestock into narrow metal chutes at distribution points which are overseen by heavily armed mercenaries. They receive, if they are one of the fortunate few, a small box of food.

Al-Ajouri, who before the genocide was a taxi driver, lives with his wife, seven children and his mother and father in a tent in al-Saraya, near the middle of Gaza City. He set out to an aid hub at Salah al-Din Road near the Netzarim corridor, to find some food for his children, who he said cry constantly ‘because of how hungry they are.’ On the advice of his neighbour in the tent next to him, he dressed in loose clothing ‘so that I could run and be agile.’ He carried a bag for canned and packaged goods because the crush of the crowds meant ‘no one was able to carry the boxes the aid came in.’

He left at about 9pm with five other men ‘including an engineer and a teacher,’ and ‘children aged 10 and 12.’ They did not take the official route designated by the Israeli army. The massive crowds converging on the aid point along the official route ensure that most never get close enough to receive food. Instead, they walked in the darkness in areas exposed to Israeli gunfire, often having to crawl to avoid being seen.

‘As I crawled, I looked over, and to my surprise, saw several women and elderly people taking the same treacherous route as us,’ he explained. ‘At one point, there was a barrage of live gunfire all around me. We hid behind a destroyed building. Anyone who moved or made a noticeable motion was immediately shot by snipers. Next to me was a tall, light-haired young man using the flashlight on his phone to guide him. The others yelled at him to turn it off. Seconds later, he was shot. He collapsed to the ground and lay there bleeding, but no one could help or move him. He died within minutes.’

He passed six bodies along the route who had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

Al-Ajouri reached the hub at 2am, the designated time for aid distribution. He saw a green light turned on ahead of him which signalled that aid was about to be distributed. Thousands began to run towards the light, pushing, shoving and trampling each other. He fought his way through the crowd until he reached the aid.

‘I started feeling around for the aid boxes and grabbed a bag that felt like rice,’ he said. ‘But just as I did, someone else snatched it from my hands. I tried to hold on, but he threatened to stab me with his knife. Most people there were carrying knives, either to defend themselves or to steal from others. Eventually, I managed to grab four cans of beans, a kilogram of bulgur, and half a kilogram of pasta. Within moments, the boxes were empty. Most of the people there, including women, children and the elderly, got nothing. Some begged others to share. But no one could afford to give up what they managed to get.’

The US contractors and Israeli soldiers overseeing the mayhem laughed and pointed their weapons at the crowd. Some filmed with their phones.

‘Minutes later, red smoke grenades were thrown into the air,’ he remembered. ‘Someone told me that it was the signal to evacuate the area. After that, heavy gunfire began. Me, Khalil and a few others headed to al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat because our friend Wael had injured his hand during the journey. I was shocked by what I saw at the hospital. There were at least 35 martyrs lying dead on the ground in one of the rooms. A doctor told me they had all been brought in that same day. They were each shot in the head or chest while queuing near the aid centre. Their families were waiting for them to come home with food and ingredients. Now, they were corpses.’

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is a Mossad-funded creation of Israel’s defence ministry that contracts with UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions, run by former members of the CIA and US Special Forces. GHF is headed by Rev Johnnie Moore, a far-right Christian Zionist with close ties to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The organisation has also contracted anti-Hamas drug-smuggling gangs to provide security at aid sites.

As Chris Gunness, a former spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) told Al Jazeera, GHF is ‘aid washing,’ a way to mask the reality that ‘people are being starved into submission.’

Israel, along with the US and European countries that provide weapons to sustain the genocide, have chosen to disregard the January 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice which demanded immediate protection for civilians in Gaza and widespread provision of humanitarian assistance.

Haaretz, in its article headlined ‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid’ reported that Israeli commanders order soldiers to open fire on crowds to keep them away from aid sites or disperse them.

‘The distribution centres typically open for just one hour each morning,’ Haaretz writes. ‘According to officers and soldiers who served in their areas, the IDF fires at people who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centres close, to disperse them. Since some of the shooting incidents occurred at night — ahead of the opening — it’s possible that some civilians couldn’t see the boundaries of the designated area.’

‘It’s a killing field,’ one soldier told Haaretz. ‘Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the centre opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.’

‘We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred metres away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces,’ the soldier explained, ‘I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.’

He said the deployment at the aid sites is known as ‘Operation Salted Fish,’ a reference to the Israeli name for the children’s game ‘Red light, green light.’ The game was featured in the first episode of the South Korean dystopian thriller Squid Game, in which financially desperate people are killed as they battle each other for money.

Israel has obliterated the civilian and humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza. It has reduced Palestinians, half a million of whom face starvation, into desperate herds. The goal is to break Palestinians, to make them malleable and entice them to leave Gaza, never to return.

There is talk from the Trump White House about a ceasefire. But don’t be fooled. Israel has nothing left to destroy. Its saturation bombing over 20 months has reduced Gaza to a moonscape. Gaza is uninhabitable, a toxic wilderness where Palestinians, living amid broken slabs of concrete and pools of raw sewage, lack food and clean water, fuel, shelter, electricity, medicine and an infrastructure to survive. The final impediment to the annexation of Gaza are the Palestinians themselves. They are the primary target. Starvation is the weapon of choice.

ScheerPost.com, June 30. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas says it is studying ceasefire proposal labelled 'final' by Trump

Hamas said on Wednesday it was studying what US President Donald Trump called a "final" ceasefire proposal for Gaza but that Israel must pull out of the enclave, while Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would be eliminated. Trump had said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed to the conditio

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hamas says it is studying ceasefire proposal labelled 'final' by Trump

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 02, 2025 23:17
Updated :
Jul 02, 2025 23:17


Hamas said on Wednesday it was studying what US President Donald Trump called a "final" ceasefire proposal for Gaza but that Israel must pull out of the enclave, while Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would be eliminated.

Trump had said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed to the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas after what he described as a "long and productive" meeting between his representatives and Israeli officials.

In a statement, Hamas said it was studying new ceasefire offers it received from the mediators Egypt and Qatar but stressed it aimed to reach an agreement that would ensure an end to the war and an Israeli pullout from Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the elimination of Hamas in his first public remarks since Trump's announcement.

"There will not be a Hamas. There will not be a Hamastan. We're not going back to that. It's over," Netanyahu told a meeting hosted by the Trans-Israel pipeline.

The statements from the two sides reiterated long-held positions, giving no clues as to whether or how a compromise agreement could be reached. Trump's announcement had raised some hope among Gazans for at least a temporary relief from war.

"I hope it would work this time, even if for two months, it would save thousands of innocent lives," Kamal, a resident of Gaza City, said by phone.

Others questioned whether Trump's statements would deliver long-term peace, saying it was not the first time he had said a peace deal was close.

"We hope he is serious like he was serious during the Israeli-Iranian war when he said the war should stop, and it stopped," said Adnan Al-Assar, a resident of Khan Younis in Gaza's south.

There is growing public pressure on Netanyahu to reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-long war, a move strongly opposed by hardline members of his right-wing ruling coalition.

At the same time, US and Israeli strikes on nuclear sites in Iran and a recently agreed ceasefire in last month's 12-day conflict have put pressure on Hamas, which is backed by Tehran.

Israeli leaders also believe that, with Iran weakened, other countries in the region have an opportunity to forge ties with Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said a majority within the coalition government would back an agreement that would see the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza.

"If there is an opportunity to do so - we must not miss it!", he wrote on X. Of 50 hostages still held, around 20 are believed to be still alive.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted that his party could provide a safety net if hardline members of the cabinet opposed a deal, effectively pledging not to back a no-confidence motion in parliament that could topple the government.

COMPLETE END?

For Gazans, who have fled multiple times and face daily struggles to find food 21 months into Israel's military campaign, there was a glimmer of optimism but many worried that any ceasefire would only be temporary.

"We want a complete end to the war on Gaza, not like every time - a partial agreement and ceasefire that lasts a month or two, then the war returns," said Samir Al-Masri in Khan Younis.

At the end of May, Hamas had said it was seeking amendments to a US-backed ceasefire proposal, which Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff said was "totally unacceptable."

That proposal had involved a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians; Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees the end of the war.

"Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War," Trump posted on Tuesday, without specifying the conditions.

A source close to Hamas said its leaders were expected to debate the proposal and seek clarifications from mediators before giving an official response.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli gunfire and military strikes killed at least 139 Palestinians in northern and southern areas in the past 24 hours, and the Israeli military ordered more evacuations late on Tuesday.

Among those killed was Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, in an airstrike that has also killed his wife and five children, medics say.

The Israeli military said in response to questions on the air strike that it had targeted a "key terrorist" from Hamas, without giving a name, in the Gaza City area. It added that it was reviewing reports of civilian casualties and said that the military regretted any harm to "uninvolved individuals", and takes steps to minimize such harm.

The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel's single deadliest day.

Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.

More than 80 per cent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.​

 

[Saif]

Trump’s ceasefire statement raises hopes in Gaza as Israel presses on with attacks

Word from US President Donald Trump that Israel has agreed to the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza raised hopes on Wednesday in the enclave, where health officials said at least 20 people had been killed in Israeli attacks. A “final” proposal would be delivered

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Trump’s ceasefire statement raises hopes in Gaza as Israel presses on with attacks

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 02, 2025 16:31
Updated :
Jul 02, 2025 16:33

Word from US President Donald Trump that Israel has agreed to the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza raised hopes on Wednesday in the enclave, where health officials said at least 20 people had been killed in Israeli attacks.

A “final” proposal would be delivered by the mediators, Qatar and Egypt, to Hamas, Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday, after what he described as a “long and productive” meeting between his representatives and Israeli officials.

Gazans said even a temporary pause would bring relief.

“I hope it would work this time, even if for two months, it would save thousands of innocent lives,” Kamal, a resident of Gaza City, said by phone.

There is growing public pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-long war, a move strongly opposed by hardline members of his right-wing ruling coalition.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X on Wednesday that a majority within the coalition government would back an agreement that would see the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza.

“If there is an opportunity to do so - we must not miss it!”, he wrote on X. Of 50 hostages still held, around 20 are believed to be still alive.

For Gazans, who have fled multiple times and face daily struggles to find food 21 months into Israel’s military campaign, the statements provided a glimmer of hope.

“Everyone is hopeful that it would work this time, there is no room for more failures, every day more costs us our lives,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a businessman.

“We are living the most difficult days. People want an end to the war, an end to the starvation and humiliation.”

There was no immediate official comment by either Israel or Hamas to Trump’s latest statement on the progress of the plan.

“Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalise the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War,” Trump’s statement said, without specifying the conditions.

IRAN LINK

The US president appeared to be seeking to use any momentum from US and Israeli strikes on nuclear sites in Iran and a recently agreed ceasefire in that conflict to put pressure on Hamas, which is backed by Tehran. Israeli leaders also believe that, with Iran weakened by last month’s 12-day war, other countries in the region have an opportunity to forge ties with Israel.

A Hamas official declined immediate comment on Trump’s statement. A source close to the group said leaders of the Islamist faction were expected to debate the proposal and seek clarifications from mediators before giving an official response.

At the end of May, Hamas had said it was seeking amendments to a US-backed ceasefire proposal, which Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said was “totally unacceptable.”

That proposal had involved a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians; Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees the end of the war.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X on Wednesday that his party could provide the government with a safety net if hardline members of the Israeli cabinet opposed a deal, effectively pledging not to back a no-confidence motion in parliament that could topple the government.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli gunfire and military strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians in separate attacks in north and southern areas, and the Israeli military ordered more evacuations late on Tuesday.

In response to questions from Reuters about the reports, the Israeli military stated that its operations aimed to dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities and mitigate civilian harm, without commenting on specific incidents.

The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.

Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.

More than 80 per cent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.​

 

[Saif]

undefined | The Financial Express

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hamas seeks ceasefire guarantees as scores more are killed in Gaza

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 03, 2025 18:35
Updated :
Jul 03, 2025 18:35


Hamas is seeking guarantees that a new US ceasefire proposal for Gaza would lead to the war's end, a source close to the militant group said on Thursday, as medics said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed scores more people.

Israeli officials said prospects for reaching a ceasefire deal and hostage deal appeared high, nearly 21 months since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

Efforts for a Gaza truce have gathered steam after the U.S. secured a ceasefire to end a 12-day aerial conflict between Israel and Iran, but on the ground in Gaza intensified Israeli strikes continued unabated, killing at least 59 people on Thursday, according to health authorities in the territory.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

Hamas is seeking clear guarantees that the ceasefire will eventually lead to the war's end, the source close to the group said. Two Israeli officials said that those details were still being worked out.

Ending the war has been the main sticking point in repeated rounds of failed negotiations.

Egyptian security sources said Egyptian and Qatari mediators were working to secure U.S. and international guarantees that talks on ending the war would continue as a way of convincing Hamas to accept the two-month truce proposal.

A separate source familiar with the matter said that Israel was expecting Hamas' response by Friday and that if it was positive, an Israeli delegation would join indirect talks to cement the deal.

The proposal includes the staggered release of 10 living Israeli hostages and the return of the bodies of 18 more in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, sources say. Of the 50 remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 are believed to still be alive.

A senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said preparations were in place to approve a ceasefire deal even as the premier heads to Washington to meet Trump on Monday.

'READINESS TO ADVANCE'

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, who sits on Netanyahu's security cabinet, told news website Ynet that there was "definitely readiness to advance a deal."

In Gaza, however, there was little sign of relief. At least 17 people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a school in Gaza City where displaced families were sheltering, according to medics.

"Suddenly, we found the tent collapsing over us and a fire burning. We don’t know what happened," one witness, Wafaa Al-Arqan, told Reuters. "What can we do? Is it fair that all these children burned?"

According to medics at Nasser hospital farther south, at least 20 people were killed by Israeli fire en route to an aid distribution site.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports and that its forces were taking precautions to mitigate harm to civilians as it battled Palestinian militants throughout Gaza.

The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than 2 million, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins.

Israel says it won't end the war while Hamas is still armed and ruling Gaza. Hamas, severely weakened, says it won't lay down its weapons but is willing to release all the hostages still in Gaza if Israel ends the war.​

 

[Saif]

Palestinians say director of key Gaza hospital killed in Israel strike

Palestinian officials and witnesses said on Wednesday that an Israeli strike killed the director of the Indonesian Hospital, a key clinic in the north of war-ravaged Gaza.

en.prothomalo.com

Palestinians say director of key Gaza hospital killed in Israel strike
AFP Gaza City
Published: 03 Jul 2025, 12: 29

Palestinian officials and witnesses said on Wednesday that an Israeli strike killed the director of the Indonesian Hospital, a key clinic in the north of war-ravaged Gaza.

Physician Marwan Al-Sultan was killed in his apartment in Gaza City along with his wife, daughters and son-in-law, a relative who said he found them, Ahmed al-Sultan, told AFP.

Gaza's civil defence agency said seven people were killed in the strike early Wednesday afternoon, including Sultan, his wife and at least three of his children.

The physician's body was taken to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where mourners gathered around it, AFP journalists reported.

"His face was unrecognisable, we could barely identify him," the director of that facility, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, told AFP.

Surviving daughter Lubna Sultan paid tribute too her father at the hospital.

"His whole life was devoted to medicine and the struggle to treat patients," she told AFP.

"There is no justification for targeting him and his martyrdom."

The killing drew condemnation from Hamas and the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, where Israeli forces are battling to crush the Palestinian militant group.

"We strongly condemn this heinous crime against our medical personnel, and we ask Allah to grant him and his family mercy, after a long journey of service," the ministry said.

The Israeli army told AFP: "The claim that as a result of the strike uninvolved civilians were harmed is being reviewed."

It said it "struck a key terrorist from the Hamas terrorist organization in the area of Gaza City" on Wednesday.

The Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, the group that runs the hospital, called the killing of the physician and his family "a flagrant violation of humanitarian principles and a grave act of injustice", saying those responsible "must be held accountable".

An Israeli military operation targeted the Indonesian Hospital in mid-May, when the Gaza health ministry said the facility's electricity generators were deliberately destroyed.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 47 in Gaza, Netanyahu vows to crush Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday vowed to eradicate Hamas, even as the Palestinian militant group said it was discussing new proposals from mediators for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Israeli leader had yet to comment on US President Donald Trump’s claim that Israel had backed...

en.prothomalo.com

Israeli strikes kill 47 in Gaza, Netanyahu vows to crush Hamas

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,012 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Updated: 03 Jul 2025, 09: 13

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday vowed to eradicate Hamas, even as the Palestinian militant group said it was discussing new proposals from mediators for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli leader had yet to comment on US President Donald Trump’s claim that Israel had backed a plan for a 60-day truce in its offensive against Hamas in the war-ravaged territory.

But a week ahead of talks scheduled with Trump in Washington, he vowed to “destroy” Hamas “down to their very foundation”.

Hamas said it was “conducting national consultations to discuss” the proposals submitted in negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt.

Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.

The civil defence agency said that Israeli forces had killed at least 47 people on Wednesday.

Among the dead was Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, a key clinic in the north of Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

Trump on Tuesday urged Hamas to accept a 60-day ceasefire, saying that Israel had agreed to finalise such a deal.

Hamas said in a statement that it was studying the latest proposals and aiming “to reach an agreement that guarantees ending the aggression, achieving the withdrawal (of Israeli forces from Gaza) and urgently aiding our people in the Gaza Strip”.

Netanyahu vowed however: “We will free all our hostages, and we will eliminate Hamas. It will be no more,” in filmed comments in the city of Ashkelon near Gaza’s northern border.

Hostage release drive

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar earlier said that he saw “some positive signs”, amid high pressure to bring home the hostages.

“We are serious in our will to reach a hostage deal and a ceasefire,” he said. “Our goal is to begin proximity talks as soon as possible.”

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

A Palestinian source familiar with the mediated negotiations told AFP that “there are no fundamental changes in the new proposal” under discussion compared to previous terms presented by the United States.

The source said that the new proposal “includes a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees”.

Israeli air strikes

In southern Gaza, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five members of the same family were killed in an Israeli air strike on Wednesday that hit a tent housing displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area.

Despite being declared a safe zone by Israel in December 2023, Al-Mawasi has been hit by repeated Israeli strikes.

AFP footage from the area showed makeshift tents blown apart as Palestinians picked through the wreckage trying to salvage what was left of their belongings.

“They came here thinking it was a safe area and they were killed. What did they do?” said one resident, Maha Abu Rizq, against a backdrop of destruction.

AFP footage from nearby Khan Yunis city showed infants covered in blood being rushed into Nasser Hospital. One man carrying a child whose face was smeared with blood screamed: “Children, children!”

Among other fatalities, Bassal later reported five people killed by Israeli army fire near an aid distribution site close to the southern city of Rafah and a further death following Israeli fire near an aid site in the centre of the territory.

They were the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive food.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers.

Evacuation order

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it “is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities” in line with “international law, and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

It said in a statement that a 19-year-old sergeant in its forces “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip”.

The military late on Wednesday issued a fresh evacuation warning to residents for three neighbourhoods of Gaza City, urging them to flee south to the Mawasi area.

Israeli forces are “operating with extreme intensity in the area and will attack any location being used to launch missiles towards the State of Israel”, Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a message on Telegram.

“The destruction of terrorist organisations will continue and expand into the city centre, encompassing all neighbourhoods of the city,” Avichay wrote.

The military earlier said that its air force had intercepted two “projectiles” that crossed from northern Gaza into Israeli territory.

Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,012 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.​

 

[Sharma Ji]

hows the lungee peace brokering going ?

 

[Sharma Ji]

 

[Sharma Ji]

 

[Saif]

hows the lungee peace brokering going ?

When did the biggest lungi land on earth aka India become a peace broker?

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Those who are unable to manage their own country keep big dream to making peace between the nations who are at war for decades.

 

[Saif]

Those who are unable to manage their own country keep big dream to making peace between the nations who are at war for decades.

........and this comes from a guy whose country depends on the Muslim world for sustenance. Funny!!!

 

[Saif]

WHO says Gaza’s Nasser hospital ‘one massive trauma ward’

Nasser hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients wounded at non-United Nations food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The US-and Israeli-backed GHF began distributing f

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

WHO says Gaza’s Nasser hospital ‘one massive trauma ward’

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 04, 2025 19:53
Updated :
Jul 04, 2025 19:53

A Palestinian, wounded by Israeli fire while seeking aid on Friday, according to medics, receives treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Jul 4, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

Nasser hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients wounded at non-United Nations food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The US-and Israeli-backed GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries that the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It has repeatedly denied that incidents involving people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred.

Referring to medical staff at the Nasser hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries ... (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites. The hospital is now operating as one massive trauma ward.”

Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19.

The United Nations human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.

“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys - this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 were killed near GHF distribution points.

The GHF has previously said it has delivered more than 52 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks “safely and without interference”, while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”

The UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there have been some instances of violent looting and attacks on aid truck drivers, which it described as unacceptable.

BULLET WOUNDS

Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest and knees, according to the WHO.

Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.

Peeperkorn recounted the cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck which rendered him paraplegic.

“There is no chance for any reversal or any proper treatment. Young lives are being destroyed forever,” Peeperkorn said, urging for the fighting to stop and for more food aid to be allowed into Gaza.

The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than 2 million, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for a ceasefire in Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli military kills 15 in Gaza as Trump awaits Hamas reply to truce proposal

At least 15 Palestinians were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, according to local health officials, as US President Donald Trump said he expected Hamas to respond to his "final proposal" for a ceasefire in Gaza in the next 24 hours. Health officials at the Nasser Hospital in Khan

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli military kills 15 in Gaza as Trump awaits Hamas reply to truce proposal

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 04, 2025 19:30
Updated :
Jul 04, 2025 19:30

A view of the site of Thursday's Israeli strike that damaged and destroyed residential buildings, at Shati (Beach) refugee camp, in Gaza City, July 4, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

At least 15 Palestinians were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, according to local health officials, as US President Donald Trump said he expected Hamas to respond to his "final proposal" for a ceasefire in Gaza in the next 24 hours.

Health officials at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, said the Israeli military had carried out an airstrike on a tent encampment west of the city around 2 am, killing 15 Palestinians displaced by nearly two years of war.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Later on Friday, Palestinians gathered to perform funeral prayers before burying those killed overnight.

"The ceasefire will come, and I have lost my brother? There should have been a ceasefire long ago before I lost my brother," said 13-year-old Mayar Al Farr as she wept. Her brother, Mahmoud, was among those killed.

Adlar Mouamar said her nephew, Ashraf, was also killed. "Our hearts are broken. We ask the world, we don’t want food...We want them to end the bloodshed. We want them to stop this war."

Trump earlier said it would probably be known in 24 hours whether Hamas has accepted a ceasefire between the Palestinian militant group and Israel.

On Tuesday, the president announced that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties would work towards ending the war.

Hamas, which has previously declared it would only agree to a deal for a permanent end to the war, has said it was studying the proposal, but given no public indication whether it would accept or reject it.

'MAKE THE DEAL'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is yet to comment on Trump's ceasefire announcement. While some members of his right-wing coalition oppose a deal, others have indicated their support.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the militant group has so far refused to discuss.

In Tel Aviv, families and friends of hostages held in Gaza were among demonstrators who gathered outside a US Embassy building on US Independence Day, calling on Trump to secure a deal for all of the captives.

Demonstrators set up a symbolic Shabbat dinner table, placing 50 empty chairs to represent those who are still held in Gaza. Banners hung nearby displaying a post by Trump from his Truth Social platform that read, "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!"

The Sabbath, or Shabbat, observed from Friday evening to Saturday nightfall, is often marked by Jewish families with a traditional Friday night dinner.

"Only you can make the deal. We want one beautiful deal. One beautiful hostage deal," said Gideon Rosenberg, 48, from Tel Aviv.

Rosenberg was wearing a shirt with the image of hostage Avinatan Or, one of his employees who was abducted by Palestinian militants from the Nova musical festival on October 7, 2023. He is among the 20 hostages who are believed to be alive after more than 600 days of captivity.

Ruby Chen, 55, the father of 19-year-old American-Israeli Itay, who is believed to have been killed after being taken captive, urged Netanyahu to return from his meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday with a deal that brings back all hostages.

"Let this United States Independence Day mark the beginning of a lasting peace..., one that secures the sacred value of human life and one that bestows dignity to the deceased hostages by ensuring their return to proper burial,” he said, also appealing to Trump.

Itay Chen, also a German national, was serving as an Israeli soldier when Hamas carried out its surprise attack on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.

Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas has devastated Gaza, which the militant group has ruled for almost two decades but now only controls in parts, displacing most of the population of more than 2 million and triggering widespread hunger.

More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in nearly two years of fighting, most of them civilians, according to local health officials.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas holding consultations on truce proposal

Hamas said Friday it was holding consultations with other Palestinian movements on a truce proposal in the war with Israel, in a possible sign that it was preparing for negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza.

www.newagebd.net

Hamas holding consultations on truce proposal
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 05 July, 2025, 01:01

Mourners weep during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza Strip the previous day, outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on Friday. | AFP photo

Hamas said Friday it was holding consultations with other Palestinian movements on a truce proposal in the war with Israel, in a possible sign that it was preparing for negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The statement came ahead of a visit on Monday by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where president Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the war.

The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by militants.

Two previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have seen a temporary halt in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

‘The movement is conducting consultations with leaders of Palestinian forces and factions regarding the proposal received from the mediators,’ Hamas said in a statement early Friday.

Hours earlier, Netanyahu vowed to bring home all the hostages held by militants in Gaza, after coming under massive domestic pressure including from the hostages’ loved ones over their fate.

‘I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them,’ Netanyahu told inhabitants of the Nir Oz kibbutz, the community that saw the most hostages seized in the 2023 Hamas attack.

Trump on Thursday said he wanted ‘safety’ for people in Gaza, as he prepared to host his ally.

‘I want to see safety for the people of Gaza. They’ve gone through hell,’ he said.

A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations said earlier this week that there were no fundamental changes in the new proposal under discussion compared to previous terms presented by the United States.

The source said the new proposal ‘includes a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees’.

Earlier this week, Israel’s top diplomat Gideon Saar said any chance to free the hostages ‘must not be missed’, after Trump urged Hamas to agree to a 60-day ceasefire that he said had Israel’s backing.

Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations against Hamas militants.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said that overnight Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people.

Civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir said that seven people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli air strike on displaced people’s tents near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

Mughayyir said eight more people were killed in two other strikes on tent encampments on the coast of Khan Yunis, including one that killed two children early Friday.

Some 613 people have been killed around aid distributions and convoys in Gaza since late May, including 509 near the US- and Israel-backed GHF’s sites, the United Nations said Friday.

An officially private effort, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than two months, sparking famine warnings.

GHF operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations in the Palestinian territory, where the Israeli military is seeking to destroy Hamas.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific attacks without precise coordinates, but noted it was ‘operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities’.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas responds to Gaza ceasefire proposal, it's 'positive': Palestinian official

US President Donald Trump earlier announced a "final proposal" for a 60-day ceasefire in the nearly 21-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, stating he anticipated a reply from the parties in coming hours

www.thedailystar.net

Hamas responds to Gaza ceasefire proposal, it's 'positive': Palestinian official

A general view shows destruction in North Gaza, as seen from Israel, May 27, 2025 File Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen
​

• Israeli attacks kill at least 138 Palestinians in Gaza, health officials report​
• Israeli demonstrators urge Trump to secure hostage deal​

Hamas has submitted its response to a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire proposal, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told Reuters on Friday, describing the response as a positive one that should "facilitate reaching a deal."

US President Donald Trump earlier announced a "final proposal" for a 60-day ceasefire in the nearly 21-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, stating he anticipated a reply from the parties in coming hours.

"We have handed the mediators, Qatar and Egypt, our response to the ceasefire proposal," a Hamas official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"The Hamas response is positive and I think it should help and facilitate reaching a deal," said the Palestinian official close to the talks.

Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed "to the necessary conditions to finalize" a 60-day ceasefire, during which efforts would be made to end the U.S. ally's war in the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to comment on Trump's announcement and in their public statements, the two sides remain far apart. Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the militant group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.

Netanyahu is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday. Asked early on Friday U.S. time if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, Trump said: "We are going to know over the next 24 hours."

Trump has said he would be "very firm" with Netanyahu on the need for a speedy Gaza ceasefire while noting that the Israeli leader wants one as well.

"We hope it's going to happen. And we're looking forward to it happening sometime next week," he told reporters earlier this week. "We want to get the hostages out."

'STOP THIS WAR'

Israeli attacks have killed at least 138 Palestinians in Gaza over the past 24 hours, local health officials said.

Health officials at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, said the Israeli military had carried out an airstrike on a tent encampment west of the city around 2:00am, killing 15 Palestinians displaced by nearly two years of war.

The Israeli military said troops operating in the Khan Younis area had eliminated militants, confiscated weapons and dismantled Hamas outposts in the last 24 hours, while striking 100 targets across Gaza, including military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers.

Later on Friday, Palestinians gathered to perform funeral prayers before burying those killed overnight.

"There should have been a ceasefire long ago before I lost my brother," said 13-year-old Mayar Al Farr as she wept. Her brother, Mahmoud, was shot dead in another incident, she said.

"He went to get aid, so he can get a bag of flour for us to eat. He got a bullet in his neck. It killed him on the spot," she said.

Adlar Mouamar said her nephew, Ashraf, was also killed in Gaza. "Our hearts are broken. We ask the world, we don't want food...We want them to end the bloodshed. We want them to stop this war."

'MAKE THE DEAL'

In Tel Aviv, families and friends of hostages held in Gaza were among demonstrators who gathered outside a US Embassy building on US Independence Day, calling on Trump to secure a deal for all of the captives.

Demonstrators set up a symbolic Sabbath dinner table, placing 50 empty chairs to represent those who are still held in Gaza. Banners hung nearby displaying a post by Trump from his Truth Social platform that read, "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!"

The Sabbath, or Shabbat, observed from Friday evening to Saturday nightfall, is often marked by Jewish families with a traditional Friday night dinner.

"Only you can make the deal. We want one beautiful deal. One beautiful hostage deal," said Gideon Rosenberg, 48, from Tel Aviv.

Rosenberg was wearing a shirt with the image of hostage Avinatan Or, one of his employees who was abducted by Palestinian militants from the Nova musical festival on October 7, 2023. He is among the 20 hostages who are believed to be alive after more than 600 days of captivity.

Ruby Chen, 55, the father of 19-year-old American-Israeli Itay, who is believed to have been killed after being taken captive, urged Netanyahu to return from meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday with a deal that brings back all hostages.

"Let this United States Independence Day mark the beginning of a lasting peace... one that secures the sacred value of human life and one that bestows dignity to the deceased hostages by ensuring their return to proper burial," he said, also appealing to Trump.

Itay Chen, also a German national, was serving as an Israeli soldier when Hamas carried out its surprise attack on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.

Israel's retaliatory war against Hamas has devastated Gaza, which the militant group has ruled for almost two decades but now only controls in parts, displacing most of the population of more than 2 million and triggering widespread hunger.

More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in nearly two years of fighting, most of them civilians, according to local health officials.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says two of its US aid workers injured in Gaza

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Saturday that two American aid workers had suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a targeted attack at a food distribution site in Gaza. The US- and Israeli-backed GHF said in a statement that the injured Americans were receiving medical treatment and we

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says two of its US aid workers injured in Gaza

REUTERS
Published :
Jul 05, 2025 19:13
Updated :
Jul 05, 2025 19:13

Palestinians carry aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/Files

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Saturday that two American aid workers had suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a targeted attack at a food distribution site in Gaza.

The US- and Israeli-backed GHF said in a statement that the injured Americans were receiving medical treatment and were in a stable condition.

"The attack – which preliminary information indicates was carried out by two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans – occurred at the conclusion of an otherwise successful distribution in which thousands of Gazans safely received food," the GHF said.

In addition to aid workers, the GHF employs private US military contractors tasked with providing security at their sites.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. The Israeli military had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.

Gazan authorities separately reported dozens of Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli military in the past 24 hours, including near aid distribution sites.

The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza on Thursday had warned residents of the coastal enclave not to assist the GHF, saying deadly incidents near its food distribution sites endangered hungry Gazans.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, bypassing traditional aid channels, including the United Nations which says the US-based organisation is neither impartial nor neutral.

The GHF has said it has delivered more than 52 million meals to Palestinians in five weeks, while other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted".

Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, the UN says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid handouts. A senior UN official said last week that the majority of people killed were trying to reach aid distribution sites of the GHF.

Footage released by GHF has shown at least one aid site to be overrun with no clear distribution process. Palestinians have described the sites as chaotic.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 70 people have been killed in the territory by the Israeli military in the last 24 hours, including 23 near aid distribution sites.

The ministry did not specify where or how exactly they had been killed.

Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas, according to the Gaza health ministry, launched after the militant group’s surprise attack on Israel in October 7, 2023.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in that attack and took another 251 hostages into Gaza. There are 50 hostages still held in Gaza, of which 20 are believed to be alive.​