The Albany Gazette - US says Israel backs latest Gaza truce plan sent to Hamas

Negotiations to end more than 19 months of war have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in Gaza in March after a brief truce.

The White House said President Donald Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff had "submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed".

"Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, adding discussions were "continuing" with the militants.

Hamas said it had "received Witkoff's new proposal from the mediators and is currently studying it responsibly".

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire despite aid beginning to trickle back into the territory following a more than two-month Israeli blockade.

Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people.

Israel has intensified its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.

Gaza’s civil defence said 54 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, including 23 in a strike on a home in Al-Bureij and two by Israeli gunfire near a US-backed aid centre in the Morag axis, in the south.

The centre, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is part of a new aid distribution system designed to keep supplies from Hamas. It has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.

"What is happening to us is degrading. The crowding is humiliating us," said Gazan Sobhi Areef, who visited a GHF centre on Thursday.

"We go there and risk our lives just to get a bag of flour to feed our children."

- 'Starvation tactics' -

The Israeli military said it was not aware of the shooting near the aid centre. In Al-Bureij, it said it struck a "Hamas cell" and was reviewing reports that civilians were killed.

It said its forces had struck "dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip" over the past day.

In a phone call with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of "systematic starvation tactics" that had "crossed all moral and legal boundaries".

On Wednesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza, the UN agency said, with Israel and the United Nations trading blame over the deepening hunger crisis.

The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid starvation fears and intense criticism of the GHF, which has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said aid trucks were entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing and accused the UN of "trying to block" GHF's work.

The United Nations said it was doing its utmost to distribute the limited aid allowed in.

It said 47 people were wounded Tuesday when crowds rushed a GHF site. A Palestinian medical source reported at least one death.

- 'Forced evacuation' -

GHF disputed that anyone had been killed or injured, saying "several inaccuracies" were circulating about its operations and that "there are many parties who wish to see GHF fail".

Medical facilities in Gaza have come under increasing strain and repeated attack.

Al-Awda Hospital said Israeli troops were "carrying out a forced evacuation of patients and medical staff" from its premises, adding it was "the only hospital that was still operating in the northern Gaza Strip".

Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 3,986 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,249, mostly civilians.

On Thursday, the military said an "employee of a contracting company that carries out engineering work" was killed in northern Gaza.

(C.Young--TAG)