More from Hamas’s Basem Naim
Despite Steve Witkoff’s proposal falling short of Hamas’s demands, the Palestinian group “responded positively and in a very responsible manner”, Naim says.
“We have said, ‘OK – based on the dire situation on the ground, the needs of our people, we have to find a way to find common ground with his proposal’. This is exactly what we have done,” the Hamas official told Al Jazeera.
Naim said Hamas wanted to go into ceasefire negotiations with two proposals on the table, to see how things could move forward.
“The main goal for us is how to secure our people a 60-day temporary ceasefire and enough inflow of humanitarian aid, and at the end of these negotiations, to guarantee a permanent ceasefire or an end to this war.”
Hamas official says Witkoff plan offered ‘no guarantees’ for end to war
We’ve been speaking with Hamas official Basem Naim. Here’s some of what he said:
- “One week ago, we agreed with Mr Witkoff on one proposal and we said ‘this is acceptable, we can consider this a negotiating paper’. He went to the other party, to the Israelis, to get their response. Instead of having a response to our proposal, he brought us a new proposal … which had nothing to do with what we agreed upon.”
- That new proposal did not guarantee a 60-day temporary ceasefire or deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
- “In the end, there are no guarantees for negotiations to end the war, or a permanent ceasefire, or a total withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.
- “We have said many times, yes we are ready to go for negotiations, but we cannot accept such a proposal as a baseline for the negotiations. Because at the end – again – what they have presented is not responding to even guarantee the inflow of humanitarian aid.”
- “They want us to legitimise their [aid] distribution plan, which has been rejected by the whole international community, including the UN.”
Israel’s Saar calls on European powers to pressure Hamas
The Israeli foreign minister accused the Palestinian group of “its continuation [of the war] by refusing to release our hostages and disarm”.
“If France and the UK want to reach a ceasefire – pressure should be put on Hamas that continues to say No, instead of attacking Israel, which says Yes.”
His statement comes as Hamas seeks amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, which President Donald Trump’s envoy described as “totally unacceptable”.
European powers led by London and Paris have been toughening their rhetoric towards Israel recently amid the genocide ongoing in Gaza.
‘Netanyahu did not commit genocide by himself’: UN expert
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has warned against pinning all of the blame for what is happening in Gaza on the Israeli prime minister alone.
“The problem will not be resolved by scapegoating him, ignoring the rest,” Albanese wrote in a post on social media.
She stressed Israel’s policies of genocide, occupation and annexation, and apartheid all must be halted.
Netanyahu slams Hamas response to ceasefire proposal, echoing Witkoff
We have a short statement from the Israeli prime minister:
“While Israel has agreed to the updated Witkoff outline for the release of our hostages, Hamas continues to adhere to its refusal. As Witkoff said, Hamas’ response is unacceptable and sets the situation back. Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region cuts ties with Israel
Michele de Pascale, the president of the region, has announced the decision to break off institutional relations with Israel, according to Italian media.
Emilia-Romagna has been running numerous cooperation projects with Israeli entities for years, the il Fatto Quotidiano reported.
According to the newspaper, de Pascale said Emilia-Romagna’s decision was taken “in the face of the very serious violence under way in the Gaza Strip, which continues to severely affect the civilian population, as demonstrated by the dramatic events of recent days in Rafah, and in consideration of the proceedings initiated by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity“.
Israel’s army issues ‘immediate evacuation’ order for south Gaza
Israel’s military has ordered “all residents” of Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and Abasan to evacuate immediately after rockets were earlier fired.
“Terrorist organizations continue to use your surroundings to launch rockets toward Israel. The [army] will aggressively attack any area used as a launching pad for terrorist activity,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement.
He added the area of southern Gaza “has been warned several times in the past and has been designated a dangerous combat zone”.
“Terrorist organizations have brought you disaster – for your own safety, evacuate immediately,” said Adraee.
Trump was hopeful for deal, but Witkoff statement suggests long way off
By Alan FisherReporting from Washington, DC
President Trump had said he believed Hamas was looking to get out of this, but there was always a concern the United States was perhaps favouring Israel in the negotiations.
Certainly, in the various drafts we’ve seen, there was a suggestion the Israelis would not agree to a 90-day ceasefire, which Hamas was very keen on; a withdrawal of forces; free movement of people inside Gaza itself, and of course, if the discussions continued, an end to the war in Gaza. All those things were considered to be red lines by Hamas.
What they’ve done is taken the Witkoff proposals, had a look at them, and it appears they’ve responded by saying, “This simply isn’t what we need.”
You have to remember that Benjamin Netanyahu has committed himself to destroying Hamas, even though numerous people in the Israeli government and senior figures in the likes of Shin Bet, the intelligence service, have said it would be impossible to do that.
It seems Steve Witkoff may still try to go to the Israelis. But of course, there are those who will argue that Netanyahu doesn’t want a deal because, as long as the war continues, it puts his legal troubles far, far away. And as long as there’s a war, he can keep his coalition together and doesn’t have to go to the electorate in Israel for yet another election.
So what happens next? It’s a very big question.
Aid rots in Jordan as Palestinians starve in Gaza: Report
About 200,000 tonnes of flour is going bad in Jordan as the desperate people of Gaza await a flood of aid after three months of Israeli restrictions on food, water, and medicine, a news report says.
Boxed meals that could feed 200,000 people for a month are going bad in warehouses as starvation worsens by the day in the besieged Palestinian territory.
“Some of the food we have is arriving at expiration in July … Some of it will have to be dumped,” UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler told NPR.
Israeli officials have told UN authorities they will no longer allow in aid from Jordan or neighbouring Egypt as the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation takes over crucial relief deliveries, it said.
US envoy Witkoff slams Hamas response as ‘unacceptable’
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy for the Middle East, has said Hamas’s response to the Gaza ceasefire proposal “is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.
“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” Witkoff said in a post on X.
“That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families, and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire.”
As we reported earlier, Hamas said it submitted a response to the proposal that would see 10 living Israeli captives held in Gaza freed and 18 bodies returned in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners.
The Palestinian group stressed its response was within a framework that would ensure a permanent ceasefire, a full and comprehensive withdrawal of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip, and the free flow of humanitarian aid.
Israeli army confirms killing Hamas’ Mohammed Sinwar on May 13
The military has confirmed what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier this week.
Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’s military chief, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month. Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had been killed.
Sinwar was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian group’s deceased leader and main planner of the October 2023 attack on Israel.
Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
Israeli army says rockets fired from Gaza fell in open areas
A military update says several rockets were launched from the Strip at southern Israel a short time ago. Hostile aircraft warnings were activated in border areas.
The rockets hit open areas near the Israeli settlements of Nirim and Ein Hashlosha, according to the army. No casualties were reported.
US group condemns MIT for barring anti-war student from graduation
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has denounced the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for banning a class president from attending her graduation ceremony after she gave a speech critical of MIT’s collaboration with the Israeli military.
Megha Vemuri was told she’s barred from the campus after she highlighted MIT’s research ties with the Israel army and said, “we are watching Israel try to wipe Palestine off the face of the Earth, and it’s a shame that MIT is a part of it”.
Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, CAIR’s Massachusetts executive director, said Vemuri was punished because she “dared to deliver a powerful speech criticizing the university’s complicity in war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government”.
“MIT officials should be ashamed of themselves for both helping enable the Israeli government’s genocide and for silencing their own students who speak up against those crimes against humanity,” Amatul-Wadud said in a statement.
“MIT must respect academic freedom and respect the voices of its students, not punish and intimidate those who speak out against genocide and in support of Palestinian humanity.”
Israeli, Palestinian activists meet pope in Vatican to promote peace
Prominent peace activists Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah have met Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City to promote peace as Israel’s war on Gaza rages.
“Peace takes shape from the ground up, beginning with places, communities and local institutions, and by listening to what they have to tell us,” said the pontiff, who called for peace in Gaza shortly after his election earlier this month.
Inon is an Israeli entrepreneur who lost his parents during the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. He has since founded a peace coalition and tried to promote dialogue and understanding.
Abu Sarah is a Palestinian activist from occupied East Jerusalem, whose brother was killed in an Israeli prison after he was arrested during the first Intifada.
Cancelled West Bank trip highlights floundering of Israel-Saudi ‘normalisation’
Firas Maksad, a fellow at the US-based Middle East Institute, has said Israel’s rejection of a visit by Arab diplomats to the occupied West Bank indicates “how far Saudi and Israel have moved from normalisation to diplomatic confrontation”.
As we’ve been reporting, Israel blocked plans by the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – as well as Turkiye – to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for talks on reviving the two-state solution.
Maksad told AFP the planned visit “underscores just how much the Saudi position has shifted away from creating a credible pathway towards a Palestinian state through conditional normalisation with Israel”.
Instead, the Gulf country is now promoting ways “to create such a path via an international coalition in support of Palestinian aspirations”, he said.
During Trump’s first term as US president, Israel signed deals to normalise diplomatic relations with Arab states as part of the US-brokered “Abraham Accords”.
Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, maintained support for the pacts and was pushing for an Israeli-Saudi normalisation deal. But the effort stalled amid global outrage over Israel’s war on Gaza, with Saudi leaders saying they will not normalise ties with Israel until a Palestinian state is established.
‘If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed’
We’ve spoken to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who say the limited aid being handed out by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) falls far short of what they need to survive under Israel’s blockade.
“We went to this new area and we came out empty handed,” resident Layla al-Masri said of the new distribution point. “What they are saying about their will to feed the people of Gaza are lies. They neither feed people nor give them anything to drink.”
Another displaced Palestinian, Abdel Qader Rabie, said people across the besieged territory have nothing left to feed their families. “There’s no flour, no food, no bread. We have nothing at home,” he said.
Rabie said when the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) would distribute assistance, he would receive a message to go pick up supplies in an orderly way.
Now, he said that every time he tries to get a box of aid at the GHF, he is swarmed by hundreds of other people trying to get it. “If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed,” Rabie added.
‘Militarising’ humanitarian aid distribution not working in Gaza
Lindsey Hutchison of Plan International says humanitarian organisations and the UN warned against the Israeli government’s aid distribution scheme currently in place in Gaza, and so far, it has been completely ineffective.
“We saw chaos and despair at the distribution site, which is frankly masquerading as a humanitarian aid scheme. That’s not what this is,” she told Al Jazeera from New York.
“This week, we have seen continual destruction of the Gaza Strip and the starvation of the population because the Israeli blockade remains,” Hutchison stressed.
She said the current scheme in place is a “militarisation of humanitarian aid”, adding it’s not working.
“The Israeli scheme to distribute limited supplies has been condemned by Plan [International] as well as the UN and others in the humanitarian sector as violating the core humanitarian principles that we all are obligated to abide by,” she said.
These are “humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence”, Hutchison noted.
“Having the military control aid and choose who they distribute it to in limited ways completely violates the way humanitarian operations are supposed to be conducted.”
Israel bombed 60 north Gaza homes in past 48 hours: Civil Defence
We have some lines from Mahmoud Basal, the spokesman of the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza:
- Israel is intensifying air attacks on Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.
- Residential buildings that shelter dozens of families have been targeted.
- Thousands of Palestinian families have become homeless as a result of the bombing of their homes in areas across Gaza.
- About 60 homes, containing dozens of residential apartments and hundreds of Palestinian families, have been bombed in less than 48 hours in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.
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