Gaza

May 31 (UPI) — Militant Hamas said Saturday it would release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners and ending the war that began in October 2023.

Steve Witkoff, who is President Donald Trump‘s Middle East envoy, on Thursday submitted his proposal to mediators from Qatar and Egypt.

“As part of this agreement, 10 living Israeli prisoners held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of eighteen bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,” Hamas said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The group said it came to the decision “after conducting a round of national consultations.”

“This proposal aims to achieve a permanent cease-fire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said in a statement also obtained by The Guardian.

The Hamas response is similar to an earlier proposal to release 10 hostages, as well as a number of hostages’ remains during the cease-fire in exchange for 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.

An unidentified Israeli official told Israeli reporters in Saturday that they are treating Hamas’ response as an “effective rejection.”

Fifty-eight hostages are believed to still be alive. A total of 146 Israeli hostages have been freed or rescued from Gaza, including 25 during the truce.

The U.S. proposal called for a 60-day pause in fighting and renewed efforts toward long-term peace, as well as guarantees from Israel that it will not resume its offensive after Hamas releases hostages.

Negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire would begin immediately on the first day of the 60-day truce, according to the proposal.

Israeli negotiators accepted the deal, but Hamas has not backed it.

On Thursday, Hamas official Basem Naim said the U.S. proposal “does not respond to any of our people’s demands,” including lifting the humanitarian blockade on the Gaza Strip that has led to famine-like conditions among 2 million.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday threatened Hamas if it did not accept.

“The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff deal’ for the release of the hostages — or be annihilated,” Katz said.

A cease-fire lasted from Jan. 19 to March 1.

Israel refused to move to a planned second phase that could have led to a permanent end to the war. Israel began fighting, including airstrikes.

In a ramped-up offensive, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza over the last 24 hours, Hamas-run health officials said. And 72 were killed on Thursday.

Negotiators have made little progress.

“Negotiations are ongoing on the current proposal,” Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ayla Ahmed Saif al-Thani said Friday. He noted the mediators from Qatar are “very determined to find an ending to the horrific situation in Gaza.”

For three months, Israel’s blockade has stopped virtually all humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the World Food Program said on Saturday.

The United Nations aid agency was allowed to bring 77 trucks loaded with flour into Gaza overnight, but the trucks were stopped by crowds of hungry people.

Lindsey Hutchison of Plan International said “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.”

She said the situation is not working.

“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.

More than 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began Oct. 7, 2023. Israel retaliated for a Hamas attack on the same da in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth” and its entire population is at risk of famine, warns the United Nations, as desperate Palestinians are shot at, starved, and forced from their homes by the Israeli forces.

Calling on Israel to stop its campaign of deliberate starvation and allow food into the besieged enclave, the UN on Friday said its mission to help Gaza’s Palestinians is the “most obstructed in recent history”.

“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in recent history,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said.

He said out of 900 aid trucks that were approved to enter from the Israeli side of the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom in Israel, fewer than 600 have been offloaded in Gaza, adding that a lower amount of aid had been picked up for distribution.

“I have no flour, no oil, no sugar, no food. I collect mouldy bread and feed it to my children. I want to get a bag of flour for my children. I want to eat. I’m hungry,” a Palestinian told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the northern part of the Strip, which includes Gaza City, “has not seen a drop of aid coming in that has been allowed in the past few days”.

“People in the central area, in the [southern] city of Khan Younis and Rafah are also struggling on a daily basis to find food supplies, particularly when it comes to flour and other basic necessities to help them survive these difficult conditions,” he added.

Palestinians leaving aid points empty-handed

After a nearly three-month blockade, Israel, under pressure from Western governments and international humanitarian organisations, allowed limited aid to enter the enclave and the resumption of limited UN operations.

However, Israel also pushed for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy United States-backed private aid distributor, to provide essential food aid to starving Palestinians.

The UN and other aid groups have refused to work with GHF, saying it lacks neutrality and its distribution model forces the displacement of Palestinians.

Still, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Friday that while any aid that gets to those who need it is “good”, aid deliveries are having “very, very little impact”.

“The catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began,” he said.

With only three of the four distribution points set up to receive aid from the GHF, people like Layla al-Masri, a displaced Palestinian, are leaving empty-handed.

“What they are saying about their will to feed the people of Gaza is all lies. They neither feed people nor give them anything to drink,” she said.

‘Parents giving children water’

Abdel Qader Rabie, another displaced Palestinian, said his family has nothing to eat. “No flour, no food, no bread, we have nothing at home,” he said.

“Every time I go to get aid, I hold a box and hundreds of people crowd over me. Earlier, UNRWA [UN agency for Palestinian refugees] used to send me a message, [and] I would go and get aid. Now there’s nothing. If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed,” Qader Rabie said.

Eri Kaneko, UN humanitarian affairs spokesperson, also criticised the type of aid that UN agencies are being allowed to bring into Gaza.

“Israeli authorities have not allowed us to bring in a single ready-to-eat meal. The only food permitted has been flour for bakeries. Even if allowed in unlimited quantities, which it hasn’t been, it wouldn’t amount to a complete diet for anyone,” Kaneko said.

Palestinians who received GHF aid said their packages included rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits, and sugar.

Meanwhile, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, described the GHF as a “bait to corral people” which “violates every principle of international law”.

“This is aid being used … to push people out from the north into militarised zones … and it’s about humiliating people, and it’s about controlling the population. This has nothing to do with stopping starvation,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said not much food is coming into the enclave as the number of trucks entering and the aid they are carrying is very limited

“Despite the trucks’ entry over the past few days, Palestinians say they have not really received any food because there have not been any normal distribution points,” she said, adding that many are going back with their pots empty.

“Some parents say they are giving their children water just to make them feel full. People say they are willing to do anything for one bag of flour or one food parcel. They are very desperate.”

Arab states are accusing Israel of weaponising hunger in Gaza, rejecting its new aid system as illegal. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said UAE envoy Mohamed Abushahab, speaking on behalf of 22 Arab League members at the UN.

As Israel’s devastating war on Gaza grinds on, pushed forward by a prime minister insistent that a goal of total military victory be met, the divisions within Israeli society are growing increasingly deeper.

In the last few weeks, as Israeli peace activists and antiwar groups have stepped up their campaign against the conflict, supporters of the war have also increased their pressure to continue, whatever its humanitarian, political or diplomatic cost.

Members of the military have published open letters protesting the political motivations for continuing the war on Gaza, or claiming that the latest offensive, which is systematically razing Gaza, risks the remaining Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.

Another open letter has come from within Israel’s universities and colleges, with its signatories doing a rare thing within Israel since the war began in October 2023: focusing on Palestinian suffering.

Elsewhere, campaigns of protest and refusal of military service have spread – a result of a mixture of pro-peace sentiment and more prevalent anger at the government’s handling of the war – posing a risk to Israel’s war effort, which is reliant upon the active participation of the country’s youth.

The war’s critics say that the man they oppose, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has become reliant upon the extreme right to maintain his coalition, and an opposition too cowardly to confront him in the face of mounting international accusations of genocide.

Powerful far right

It is important not to confuse the growing domestic criticism of the Israeli government’s handling of the war with any mass sympathy for the Palestinian people.

A recent poll reported that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents would still like to see Gaza cleared of its Palestinian population, with almost 50 percent also backing what they said was the “mass killing” of civilians in enemy cities occupied by the Israeli army.

And on Monday, thousands of Israelis led by the country’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, rampaged through occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting “death to Arabs” and attacking anyone perceived to be either Palestinian or defending them.

Also addressing the crowd at the “Jerusalem Day” march was the country’s ultranationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has been vocal in his push for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, and the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Smotrich asked the crowd: “Are we afraid of victory?”; “Are we afraid of the word ‘occupation?’” The crowd – described as “revellers” within parts of Israeli media – responded with a resounding “no”.

“There’s a cohort of the extreme right who feel vindicated by a year and a half of war,” the former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera. “They think their message that, if you blink you lose; if you pause, you lose; if you waver, you lose, has been borne out.”

Growing dissent

Alongside the intensifying of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, voices of dissent have grown louder. In April, more than 1,000 serving and retired pilots issued an open letter protesting a war they said served “political and personal interests” rather than security ones. Further letters, as well as an organised campaign encouraging young Israelis to refuse to show up for military service, have followed.

Perhaps sensing the direction the wind was blowing, the leader of Israel’s left-wing Democrats Party, Yair Golan – who initially supported the war and took a hardline position on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza – launched a stark broadside against the conflict earlier this month, claiming that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state” that killed “babies as a hobby” while giving itself the aim of “expelling populations”.

While welcomed by some, the comments of the former army major-general were rounded upon by others. Speaking at a conference in southern Israel alongside noted antiwar lawmaker Ofer Cassif, Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right members of the audience, before he had to be escorted off the premises by security.

Cassif, who refers to himself as an anti-Zionist, has long attracted the outrage of mainstream Israeli society for his loud denunciation of the way Israel treats Palestinians.

“There have always been threats against me,” Cassif, who has been alone among Israeli lawmakers in opposing the war from its onset, told Al Jazeera. “I can’t walk down my own street. I was attacked twice before October 7 and it’s gotten much worse since.

“But it’s not just me. All the peace activists risk being physically attacked or threatened, even the families of the hostages are at risk of attack by these bigots,” he said.

“Many people are coming to realise that this government and even the mainstream opposition aren’t fighting a war for security reasons, or even to recover the hostages, but are carrying out the kind of genocidal mission advocated by Smotrich and the other messianic bigots,” Cassif said of the finance minister and his supporters.

“This has been allowed by people like [Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Lapid and [Yoav] Gallant,” he said, citing prominent politicians opposed to the prime minister, “who didn’t dare criticise it [the war] and Netanyahu, who has manipulated it for his own ends.”

Cassif’s comments were echoed by one of the signatories to the academics’ open letter criticising the war, Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at the University of Haifa.

“The opposition has nothing,” she told Al Jazeera. “I get that it’s hard to argue for a complicated future, but they do and say nothing. All they’ve left us with is a choice between managing the war and the occupation and Smotrich and his followers. That’s it. What kind of future is that?”

Inherent within Israel

Many members of the government and opposition have previously served in senior roles within the army, either engaging in or overseeing combat operations against Palestinians, and maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

Democrats Party head Golan was even previously criticised by the army in 2007 for repeatedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“What we’re seeing right now is a struggle between two Zionist elites over who is the greater fascist in different forms,” Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said of the political struggles at play within Israel.

“On the one hand, there are the Ashkenazi Jews, who settled Israel, imposed the occupation and have killed thousands,” he said of Israel’s traditional military and governing elites, many of whom might describe themselves as liberal and democratic, and were originally from central and Eastern Europe. “Or [you have] the current religious Zionists, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who [the old Ashkenazi elite] now accuse of being fascists.

“You can’t reduce this to left and right. I don’t buy into that,” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “It goes deeper. Both sides are oblivious to the genocide in Gaza.”

While resistance against the war has grown both at home and abroad, so too has the intensity of the attacks being protested against.

Since Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March, almost 4,000 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of them children. In addition, a siege, imposed upon the decimated enclave on March 2, has pushed what remains of its pre-war population of more than two million to the point of famine, international agencies, including the United Nations, have warned.

At the same time as Israel’s war on Gaza has intensified, so too have its actions in the West Bank. Under the guise of another military operation, the Israeli army has occupied and levelled large parts of the occupied territory displacing a reported 40,000 of its inhabitants as it establishes its own military network there.

On Thursday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz, alongside Smotrich, who as finance minister enjoys significant control over the West Bank, announced the establishment of a further 22 Israeli settlements, all in defiance of international law.

Smotrich’s announcement came as a surprise to few. The far-right minister – himself a settler on Palestinian land – has previously been clear about his intention to see the West Bank annexed, even ordering preparations to do so in advance of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, who he expected to support the idea. He has also said Gaza will be “totally destroyed” and its population expelled to a tiny strip of land along the Egyptian border.

For Shenhav-Shahrabani, little of it was surprising.

“I went with some others to South Africa in 1994. I met a justice of the Supreme Court, a Jew, who’d been injured by an Afrikaner bomb [during the struggle against apartheid],” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “He told me that nothing will change for Palestinians until Israelis are ready to go to jail for them. We’re not there yet.”

Washington, DC – When the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank in the United States, released a playbook last year for how to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement, it did not garner much attention.

But more than eight months later, the policy document – known as Project Esther – now faces heightened scrutiny from activists and media outlets, in part because President Donald Trump appears to be following its blueprint.

The authors of Project Esther have presented their report as a set of recommendations for combating anti-Semitism, but critics say the document’s ultimate aim is to “poison” groups critical of Israel by painting them as Hamas associates.

Project Esther was created as a response to growing protests against the US support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and rights groups have described as a genocide.

So, what is Project Esther, and how is it being applied against activists? Here is a look at the document and its ongoing implications for the US.

What is the Heritage Foundation?

The Heritage Foundation is an influential conservative think tank in Washington, DC, whose stated mission is to “formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”.

Yet, critics argue that Project Esther calls for government interference to curb individual freedoms, including the rights to free speech and association when it comes to opposing Israeli government policies.

According to a New York Times report published earlier this month, the project is overseen by Victoria Coates, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who served as deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term.

The Heritage Foundation is also behind Project 2025, which critics describe as an authoritarian playbook for the second Trump presidency.

Ahead of the elections last year, Democrats repeatedly invoked Project 2025 to criticise Trump, but the then-candidate distanced himself from the document.

What does Project Esther aim to achieve?

The initiative says that it aims to “dismantle the infrastructure that sustains” what it calls the “Hamas Support Network” within 24 months.

What is the ‘Hamas Support Network’, according to Project Esther?

The authors claim that groups engaged in advocacy for Palestinian rights are members of the Hamas Support Network (HSN).

They define the supposed network as “people and organizations that are both directly and indirectly involved in furthering Hamas’s cause in contravention of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and America’s national security interests”.

In short, the document alleges that the “pro-Palestinian movement” is “effectively a terrorist support network”.

Does the ‘Hamas Support Network’ exist?

No.

There is no such network in the US, which has stern laws against providing material support to groups designated as “terrorist organisations”, including Hamas.

Beth Miller – the political director at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group that the Heritage Foundation names as part of the network – called Project Esther’s allegations “outlandish”.

“It exposes the length of lies and of absurdity that they are going through to try to tear down the Palestinian rights movement,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

How does Project Esther plan to take down the Palestinian rights movement?

The document calls for a multi-faceted campaign against supporters of Palestinian rights, targeting them legally, politically and financially.

The initiative outlines 19 goals that it labels as “desired effects”.

They include denying Palestinian rights supporters who are not US citizens access to universities, ensuring that social media platforms do not allow “anti-Semitic content”, and presenting evidence of “criminal activity” by Palestine advocates to the executive branch.

It also calls for refusing to grant permits for protests organised in support of Palestinian rights.

Project Esther suggests that Israel’s backers should conduct “legal, private research” into pro-Palestine groups to “uncover criminal wrongdoing” and undermine their credibility.

“We must wage lawfare,” it reads, referring to the tactic of using litigation to pressure opponents.

Is the Trump administration turning Project Esther recommendations into policy?

It appears to be the case.

“The phase we’re in now is starting to execute some of the lines of effort in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider to be material support for terrorism,” Coates told The New York Times.

Trump’s crackdown on college protests seems to align with what Project Esther is trying to achieve.

For example, the US administration has been revoking the visas of foreign students critical of Israel. This echoes a proposal in Project Esther, which calls for identifying students “in violation of student visa requirements”.

The Heritage Foundation also extensively cites Canary Mission – a website dedicated to doxxing and smearing pro-Palestine students – in its footnotes for Project Esther. The Trump administration is also suspected of relying on the website, along with other pro-Israel groups, to identify students for deportation.

In addition, Project Esther singles out the “Middle East/North Africa or Islamic studies” programmes as having professors who are “hostile to Israel”.

The Trump administration has been pressuring elite universities to revamp academic departments, including Middle East studies programmes, that it views as biased in favour of Palestinians. Columbia University, for instance, appointed a provost to review its programmes at Trump’s request, “starting immediately with the Middle East” department.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

What groups does Project Esther name as targets?

The initiative explicitly identifies several Arab, Muslim and progressive Jewish organisations as well as student groups as part of the so-called Hamas Support Network.

The initiative claims that “the network revolves around” American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an educational and civic advocacy group.

Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s executive director, said Project Esther points the finger at the group because it has “Muslim” in its name, playing on Islamophobic bigotry.

“American Muslims for Palestine is an easy target. Given the Islamophobic tendencies, it’s easy to assume guilt of American Muslims, Palestinians. That’s a name that sticks,” Abuirshaid told Al Jazeera.

He added that the group is also a target because it is effective and has a “solid constituency”.

“If they can cripple and bring down AMP, that will have a chilling effect within the movement. So they think, if they can bring us down, other organisations will stop working on Palestine solidarity,” Abuirshaid said.

Why focus on universities?

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, said Project Esther targets universities because Israel is bleeding support among young people in the US.

“That’s why there’s such an overwhelming focus on universities and college campuses,” he told Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast.

Kenney-Shawa explained that support for Israel’s war on Gaza has been trending downwards across US demographics. But on college campuses, the change is more pronounced.

“While this change is absolutely across the political spectrum, it’s obviously a lot more acute in the left and among young Americans,” Kenney-Shawa said.

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 53 percent of US respondents had negative views of Israel, a number that rises to 71 percent among Democrats below the age of 50.

Is Project Esther working?

Advocates say that, in the immediate future, the crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement threatens the safety and wellbeing of activists, especially foreign students. But it has also sparked a backlash.

“The extreme nature of these attacks has also emboldened people to defiantly continue to speak out in the face of these attacks,” JVP’s Miller said.

“And it has actually, in many cases, awoken people – who weren’t paying attention before – to the hypocrisy that has so long existed in the willingness to silence and censor Palestinian rights activists.”

Earlier in May, several right-wing lawmakers and Trump allies came out in opposition of a bill that aimed to expand restrictions on boycotts of Israel, citing free speech concerns.

Abuirshaid echoed Miller’s comments. He acknowledged that the media attacks, arrests and lawsuits against advocates and student protesters have been “distracting” from the mission of focusing on Palestine.

However, he added, “I’m going to be clear: It’s energising us to continue this fight.”

Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth”, the United Nations has said, as Israel continues to block all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering the Strip, where famine stalks the entire Palestinian population, and the Israeli military relentlessly bombs the besieged enclave.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Friday that 100 percent of the 2.3-million population of Gaza is now on the verge of “catastrophic hunger”.

The “limited number of truckloads coming in [Gaza] is a trickle – it’s drip-feeding food,” Laerk said.

“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”, he added.

What paucity of aid is entering the enclave is under the control of a new, shadowy NGO backed by Israel and the United States – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

On Friday, sources at Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera that 20 people were shot by Israeli troops as they desperately tried to get food at a GHF aid distribution point.

That distribution site, located near Israel’s Netzarim Corridor bisecting the territory, is the third to have been set up, after two distribution points were established in the southern city of Rafah.

Armed surveillance is administered around the clock. “People are telling us that the sites managed and operated by the GHF are metres away from where the Israeli military is stationed. They can see the tanks, they can see the armoured vehicles,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.

Ten people were killed earlier this week trying to access food distribution points, and images showed many being herded into cage-like lines. Palestinians desperately trying to get hold of any aid must risk Israeli fire and military forces.

“There are also reports of enforced disappearances. A lot of families reported that many of their children, of their family members, who went to the sites … have gone missing as they were trying to get food,” Mahmoud said.

The aid delivery scheme has been roundly condemned by UN officials and the humanitarian community, who have accused the group of aiding Israel’s war objectives by forcibly displacing Palestinians under the guise of aid.

Critics maintain that the currently inadequate aid could be safely scaled up in Gaza, if Israel would allow access to aid and let the organisations that have decades of experience handle the flow.

“Through this dangerous and reckless approach, food is not being distributed where it’s needed most but is instead directed only to areas where Israeli forces choose to amass civilians,” said Doctors Without Borders Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear. “This means the most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need.”

Famine is declared in an area where at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food. At famine levels of deprivation, 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least four children in every 10,000 die each day from starvation or malnutrition-linked disease. OCHA said at least 1 in 5 people in Gaza is currently facing starvation.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says it’s “safe to say there is famine” in Gaza. Fakhri told Al Jazeera that Israel is using aid “as bait to corral people” and push them out of the north and into militarised zones”.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was already catastrophic when Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, causing conditions to deteriorate even further. After growing international pressure, Israeli authorities said they would allow minimal supplies of food and medicine into the Strip, but critical supplies are still not reaching the people.

France’s sanctions threat

The chorus of condemnation against Israel was underscored by France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday. The French leader warned that Paris could “apply sanctions” unless the Israeli government responds to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Speaking during a visit to Singapore on Friday, Macron said the international community could not remain passive while Palestinians in Gaza face a deepening hunger crisis that is “untenable”.

“If there is no response in the coming hours and days in line with the humanitarian situation, we will have to harden our collective position,” he added, suggesting that France may consider applying sanctions against Israeli settlers.

Palestinian daily deaths as ceasefire remains uncertain

At least 30 people have been killed since dawn on Friday in attacks in southern Deir el-Balah, northern Jabalia and on eastern Khan Younis.

The Israeli army has also been expanding its military operation on the ground, issuing new forced displacement orders for five areas in northern Gaza. According to a UN spokesperson, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in Gaza in the last two weeks by Israel’s displacement orders.

Meanwhile, hopes for an elusive truce remained unrealised. Hamas said on Friday it is currently reviewing a new US ceasefire proposal that Washington says has been signed off on by Israel, but that in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.

Trump said he believes his administration will have an announcement later on Friday, “or maybe tomorrow”.

“We have a chance of that,” he told reporters from the Oval Office.

The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that France will have to toughen its stance on Israel if it continues to block humanitarian aid to Gaza. He urged Israel to allow food, water, and medicine, and reiterated France’s support for a two-state solution.

Israeli air strikes hit homes in Gaza City on Friday, forcing families to flee through smoke and rubble. The attack came as Hamas is reviewing a new US-backed ceasefire proposal but has said that its current terms would result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition plans second sailing after earlier attempt saw ship targeted in a drone attack blamed on Israel.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham will join the next sailing of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) as it attempts to break Israel’s months-long blockade of Gaza.

The “Madleen” is due to disembark from Catania, Sicily, on Sunday with a cargo of humanitarian aid and several high-profile activists on board, including Thunberg, European Member of Parliament Rima Hassan and Palestinian-American lawyer Huwaida Arraf.

Cunningham, an Irish actor best known for his role as Davos Seaworth in the hit HBO series, is a longtime advocate for Palestine and similar causes.

The sailing marks the second attempt in as many months by the FFC, a coalition of humanitarian groups, to reach Gaza.

A mission at the start of May was aborted after another FFC vessel, the “Conscience”, was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.

The FFC alleges that Israel was responsible for the attack, which severely damaged the front section of the ship.

Meet some of the panelists, volunteers and supporters joining the launch of ‘Madleen’ in Catania, Sicily about to sail to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza. ⛵️#AllEyesOnDeck #BreakTheSiege https://t.co/ZoCnr45S3I @RimaHas pic.twitter.com/IqAhOSHBv9

— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) May 29, 2025

MEP Hassan said in a short video on social media that the trip by the “Madleen” is a protest against Israel as much as an attempt to deliver much-needed aid to Gaza.

“The first [goal] being of course to reject the blockade of humanitarian aid, the ongoing genocide, the impunity enjoyed by the State of Israel and to raise global international awareness,” she said.

“This action is also in response to the attack that took place on May 2 against the previous ship that took place in international waters near Malta.”

Israel partially lifted its nearly three-month blockade of Gaza last week, but since then has only allowed a tiny amount of assistance into the Palestinian territory, which the United States has warned is on the brink of famine.

This week, thousands of Palestinians rushed to so-called aid distribution stations set up by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, leading to the deaths of at least three people and dozens of injuries in the chaos that ensued as desperate people tried to get food supplies.

The UN and other humanitarian organisations are boycotting the US and Israeli-backed initiative, accusing Israel of attempting to consolidate and control aid distribution across Gaza in a further weaponisation of food and starvation.

The World Health Organization has warned that Gaza is at risk of famine following months of prolonged food shortages amid Israel’s punishing blockade, and that about a quarter of the population is in a “catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.

A ceasefire proposal with Israel tabled by the administration of United States President Donald Trump is “still under discussion” by Hamas, but in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza, an official from the Palestinian group has said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.

Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency that the deal “does not meet any of our people’s demands, foremost among them, halting the war”.

“Nonetheless, the movement’s leadership is studying the response to the proposal with full national responsibility,” Naim added.

The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw Israeli troops from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.

The Israeli government has not publicly confirmed that it approved the latest proposal.

Reports in Israeli media this week suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the families of captives still held in Gaza that he is prepared to move forward with Witkoff’s temporary ceasefire proposal.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst, told Al Jazeera it was “unusual” for Israel to come out and agree to a proposal first, and that Netanyahu may be betting on the plan being impossible for Hamas to accept so that he can paint them as the “bad guys” and continue the war.

“It happened before… and Netanyahu put the blame on them,” Eldar said.

Conflicting reports

Attempts to restore a ceasefire in Gaza have been scuppered by deep differences on conditions for ending the conflict, including Israel’s demand that Hamas completely disarm, and the Palestinian group’s demand that Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza.

Reports of this latest proposal follow conflicting reports earlier this week, when Hamas claimed it had reached an understanding for a ceasefire “general framework” with Witkoff and only awaited a “final response”.

“We have reached an agreement on a general framework with Witkoff that ensures a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza, and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid,” the group said in a statement.

The agreement also reportedly included “the establishment of a professional committee to manage Gaza’s affairs once a ceasefire is declared”, according to the Hamas statement.

As part of the deal, Trump would also reportedly guarantee that a ceasefire would be established within 60 days and ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Witkoff, however, later denied that these were the terms of any deal he had proposed, telling Reuters that what he had seen was “completely unacceptable”.

An anonymous US official close to Witkoff also rejected the claim, telling Al Jazeera that the group’s claims were “inaccurate” and “disappointing”. Israel also dismissed the claim, with one unnamed official calling the statement “psychological warfare” and “propaganda” in comments to The Times of Israel.

Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18, after breaking a six-week temporary ceasefire, with Netanyahu announcing that fighting had resumed with “full force”.

The months since have seen the Israeli military resume its relentless assault across Gaza, killing close to 4,000 people since breaking the truce and propelling the overall death toll in the enclave to more than 54,000, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Israel has also imposed a deadly, months-long blockade on humanitarian aid entering the Palestinian enclave, which UN officials say has pushed the population to the brink of famine.

Israel partially lifted its blockade on May 19, allowing a trickle of aid to enter Gaza, but United States Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as a mere “teaspoon” of what is needed.

There were chaotic scenes this week as crowds of starving Palestinians attempted to reach life-saving supplies distributed by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a new and controversial group that said it would deliver aid in the besieged enclave.

Protesters held a silent vigil outside Harvard University’s commencement ceremony, demanding an end to US support for Israel’s war on Gaza. The demonstration came amid rising political pressure, as the Trump administration targets pro-Palestinian activism with deportation threats.

May 29 (UPI) — Israel unveiled plans Thursday for the most significant expansion of its presence in the occupied West Bank in years after approving 22 new Jewish settlements.

The scheme gives legal recognition to the 22 settlements, which already exist but are unofficial, said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Katz said the step would “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel,” but the Palestinian Authority and at least one anti-war group in Israel condemned the move.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the Israeli government’s approval of the new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, a “dangerous escalation” that was an affront to international legitimacy and international law, including at least one U.N. Security Council Resolution.

He also called on Washington to intervene to halt “Israeli tampering” with what he said had implications for the entire region.

The Peace Now protest movement said the move would “dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further.”

Israel’s some 160 settlements on disputed land it has occupied for almost six decades since the 1967 Six-Day War with its Arab neighbors are illegal under international law. But Israel argues it has a legal claim on the grounds that the West Bank is fundamental to its security and for religious and historic reasons dating back to the Balfour Declaration and beyond.

Calling the settlement approvals “a historic decision,” Smotrich dismissed criticism of the move, saying Israel was not seizing foreign lands but reclaiming “the inheritance of our fathers.”

“This is a great day for settlement and an important day for the State of Israel. Through hard work and tenacious leadership, we have succeeded in creating a profound strategic change, returning the State of Israel to a path of construction, Zionism, and vision,” he wrote in a post on X.

“Settlement in the land of our ancestors is the protective wall of the State of Israel — today we have taken a huge step to strengthen it. The next step – sovereignty!” said Smotrich.

Katz and Smotrich’s statements came hours after the governments of Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain issued a joint communique reaffirming their commitment to the implementation of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Only a “viable, contiguous Palestinian State, with internationally recognized borders, comprised of Gaza and the West Bank and with East Jerusalem as its capital, can fully satisfy the legitimate national aspirations and the needs of peace and security” of both peoples, read the dispatch issued after the representatives of the four nations met Wednesday.

Israel announces 22 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, fuelling fears of further annexation and erasure.

The Israeli government says it will establish 22 illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of some so-called “outposts” already built without government authorisation, in a move decried by Palestinian officials and rights groups.

Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decision on Thursday, with Katz saying that it “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria,” using an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.

He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

Smotrich, himself a settler on illegally occupied Palestinian-owned land and an advocate for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, hailed the “historic decision”.

In a statement, the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the move as a “once-in-a-generation decision”, emphasising its strategic value in fortifying Israel’s hold along the eastern border with Jordan.

Israel has already built more than 100 illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.

The West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas.

The Palestinians see the territory as an integral part of a future state, along with occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Palestinians slam ‘dangerous escalation’

Palestinian officials and rights groups slammed the Israeli government’s decision, warning that the expansion of illegal settlements would further harm the prospects for a future Palestinian state.

Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the decision, calling it a “dangerous escalation” and a “challenge to international legitimacy”.

He accused Israel of fuelling instability in the region and warned the move breaches international law. “This decision violates all international resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334,” he said, adding that all settlement activity remains illegal and illegitimate.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri condemned called on the United States and the European Union to take action.

“The announcement of the building of 22 new settlements in the West Bank is part of the war led by Netanyahu against the Palestinian people,” Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters.

The Israeli NGO Peace Now said the move “will dramatically reshape the West Bank and further entrench the occupation”.

“The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal,” it said in a statement.

“This is the largest batch of illegal Israeli settlements to be approved in one decision,” reported Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim from the occupied West Bank.

“Israeli settlements are strangling Palestinian communities inside the West Bank,” said Ibrahim. “These new settlements fill the gaps, making a future Palestinian state almost impossible on the ground. Israel is using this moment – while global attention is fixed on Gaza – to cement its occupation.”

The settlement announcement comes just weeks ahead of a high-level international conference, jointly led by France and Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, aiming to revive the long-dormant process to agree a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a UN World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, taking bags of flour after nearly three months of an Israeli blockade. The WFP said initial reports indicated that two people had died and several more were injured in the incident.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says that “hordes of hungry people” have broken into a food supply warehouse in central Gaza.

Two people are reported to have died and several others injured in the incident, the programme said, adding that it was still confirming details.

Video footage from AFP news agency showed crowds breaking into the Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah and taking bags of flour and cartons of food as gunshots rang out. It was not immediately clear where the gunshots came from.

In a statement, the WFP said humanitarian needs in Gaza had “spiralled out of control” after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was eased last week.

The WFP said that food supplies had been pre-positioned at the warehouse for distribution.

The programme added: “Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”

The WFP said it had “consistently warned of alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground, and the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance”.

Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that 121 trucks belonging to the UN and the international community carrying humanitarian aid including flour and food were transferred into Gaza.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week. However, UN Middle East envoy Sigrid Kaag told the UN Security Council this was “comparable to a lifeboat after the ship has sunk” when everyone in Gaza was facing the risk of famine.

A controversial US and Israeli-backed group – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – was also established as a private aid distribution system. It uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which said it was unworkable and unethical.

The US and Israeli governments say the GHF, which has set up four distribution centres in southern and central Gaza, is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

The UN Humans Right Office said 47 people were injured on Tuesday after people overran one of the GHF distribution sites in the southern city of Rafah, a day after it began working there.

Another senior UN official told journalists on Wednesday that desperate crowds were looting cargo off of UN aid trucks.

Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office for the occupied Palestinian territories, also said there was no evidence that Hamas was diverting aid coordinated through credible humanitarian channels.

He said the real theft of relief goods since the beginning of the war had been carried out by criminal gangs which the Israeli army “allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Gaza”.

The UN has argued that a surge of aid like the one during the recent ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas would reduce the threat of looting by hungry people and allow it to make full use of its well-established network of distribution across the Gaza Strip.

Gaza has been under total blockade by Israel for nearly three months.

Aid agencies have been stopped from delivering the most basic of supplies, leaving 2.3 million people starving.

Now, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is delivering food packages, but it is backed by Israel and the US. Its first attempt turned into chaos.

The foundation has also faced strong criticism from the UN and other aid agencies. They say it does not follow humanitarian principles and appears to be “weaponising” aid.

So why has Israel decided to let in some aid, yet only under an agency it backs?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Chris Gunness – Former director of communications for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees

Amjad Shawa – Director of the Palestinian NGOs Network

Eyal Weizman – Director of the research agency Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths at the University of London; author of The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza

Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip – Jehad Al-Assar left his tent in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah early in the morning on a new and exhausting journey to get food for his family.

His destination on Wednesday: an aid distribution point in Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, run by the United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Jehad walked a “gruelling” 10km (6.2 miles) to reach the site, driven along primarily by the weight of responsibility for his pregnant wife and two hungry daughters.

With starvation spreading throughout Gaza, a direct result of Israel’s months-long blockade on the territory, the GHF site was Jehad’s only hope.

This is despite the controversy surrounding the organisation, whose own head resigned on Sunday, saying that the GHF could not adhere “to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

The GHF’s lack of experience in dealing with aid distribution was highlighted on Tuesday, when at least three Palestinians were killed in the chaos that surrounded the relief effort.

But in Gaza, people are hungry and desperate. Jehad is among them.

After walking for 90 minutes, the 31-year-old reached the iron gates of the distribution centre, alongside thousands of others, before they suddenly opened.

“Crowds surged in – thousands of people. There was no order at all,” Jehad told Al Jazeera. “People rushed towards the yard where aid boxes were stacked and moved into the inner hall, where there were more supplies.”

“It was chaos – a real struggle. Men, women, children, all crammed together, pushing to grab whatever they could. No queues, no system – just hunger and disorder,” Jehad added.

Inside the hall, people snatched whatever they could carry. “Anyone who could lift two boxes took them. Sugar and cooking oil were the priorities. They grabbed what they wanted and rushed out.”

“There was no trace of humanity in what happened,” he said. “I was nearly crushed by the crowd.”

Just a short distance away, armed foreign forces stood watching without intervening. Jehad said he approached one of them and confronted him.

“I told them, ‘You’re not helping – you’re overseeing a famine. You should leave. You’re not needed here.’”

Jehad managed to retrieve only a few items: cans of tuna, a small bag of sugar, some pasta and a packet of biscuits scattered on the ground. He carried them in a plastic bag slung over his shoulder and made the long journey back home.

“I only got a little. I was afraid to stay longer and get trampled in the stampede – but I had to bring back something. My girls need to eat. I have no choice,” he said.

When he returned to the tent, his daughters greeted him joyfully – even for the little he had brought.

“My wife and I divide the food we bring home so the kids can eat over several days. We often skip meals. The children can’t endure this… and I bear the full responsibility for feeding them,” he said.

Apocalyptic

Awad Abu Khalil was also among the desperate crowds on Wednesday. The 23-year-old described the crowds rushing to get to the food as “apocalyptic”.

“Everyone was running. It was chaos. The aid was piled up and everyone just attacked it, grabbing what they could.”

Awad said he heard gunfire in the distance, likely targeting young men trying to bypass the designated routes.

He expressed deep frustration with the staff. “I expected the American staff to distribute aid at tables, handing each person their share – not this madness.”

The images that emerged on Tuesday and Wednesday have added fuel to international criticism of the GHF, with representatives from several countries denouncing Israel’s decision to prevent the United Nations and international humanitarian organisations from bringing aid into Gaza.

Israel stopped the entry of aid into Gaza in early March, while a ceasefire was still ongoing. It has since unilaterally broken the ceasefire, and doubled down in its war on Gaza, with the official death toll now more than 54,000 Palestinians.

“We used to receive aid from international agencies and the UN,” said Jehad. “It was delivered by name, in an organised way – no chaos, no humiliation.”

By the end of Wednesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that at least 10 Palestinians desperately seeking aid had been killed by Israeli forces in the previous 48 hours.

Humiliation

Awad and Jehad were both able to return home with some food.

Jehad said that his wife and mother made bread from the pasta, soaking it and then kneading it into dough. His wife used the sugar to make a simple pudding for the children. He will return on Thursday, he said.

Even that is better than it is for most people in Gaza.

Walaa Abu Sa’da has three children. Her youngest is only 10 months old.

The 35-year-old could not bear watching people return to the displacement camp in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis carrying food while her children starved, so she decided to go to Rafah by herself.

“I fought with my husband who refused to go out of fear of the [Israeli] army. I swore I would go myself,” Walaa told Al Jazeera.

Entrusting her children to her sister, she joined the crowd heading towards the distribution site.

“My children were on the verge of starving. No milk, no food, not even baby formula. They cried day and night, and I had to beg neighbours for scraps,” she said. “So I went, regardless of what my husband thought.”

But by the time Walaa made it to Rafah, it was too late.

“People were fighting over what little remained. Some were carrying torn parcels,” she said.

Walaa left the distribution site empty-handed. On the way back, she saw a man drop a bag of flour from his torn parcel.

“I picked it up and asked if I could have it,” she said. “He shouted, ‘I came all the way from Beit Lahiya in the far north [of Gaza] to get this. I have nine children who are all starving. I’m sorry, sister, I can’t give it away,’ and he walked off.

“I understood, but his words broke me. I wept for what we’ve become.”

Walaa described the experience as deeply humiliating. She was filled with shame and inferiority.

“I covered my face with my scarf the whole time. I didn’t want anyone to recognise me going to get a food parcel,” Walaa, who is a teacher with a bachelor’s degree in geography, said.

Despite her sorrow, Walaa says she will do it again if needed.

“There’s no dignity left when your children are crying from hunger. We won’t forgive those who allowed us to reach this point.”