Live: Israel dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on Gaza on Sunday

The head of the Hamas political bureau Khalil al-Hayya on Tuesday told Egypt's Al-Qahera Al Ekhbariya TV that while he extends his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for his efforts toward a ceasefire deal, it's the Israelis that cannot be trusted to commit to it. 

Speaking from the coastal Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh where a second day of talks with mediators wrapped up, Hayya said the Israelis have already reneged on ongoing ceasefire deals twice before: First in December 2023 after one week, and then again in March 2025, after six weeks. 

The international community, the Arab and Muslim nations, and especially the US must act as a guarantor to any ceasefire deal that is agreed in order to ensure Israeli compliance, Hayya stressed.

Hamas, he said, is ready for a full exchange of captives from both sides along with a permanent ceasefire that allows Palestinians to safely and securely rebuild the battered enclave, and sees the Israeli army withdraw from its positions. 

Egypt and Qatar, alongside Hamas, are using "all means available" to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement between the group and Israel, three sources informed on the negotiations have told Middle East Eye. 

The long-imprisoned Palestinian political leader is on a list “of around one hundred senior Palestinian prisoners” being discussed ahead of the second phase of the truce deal, a source close to the negotiations said.

“Marwan alongside [a] few others are at the top of that list,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the details.

Hamas leaders told a second source that Barghouti's release was "the primary goal" for the group in the deal and that they believed they had the leverage to pressure the Israelis to do so, but that it would not be decided until the second phase of negotiations when the release of Israeli soldiers is also on the table.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Major General Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, the director of Egypt's General Intelligence Services, have personally interceded to push for his release, they said.

Read more: Gaza ceasefire deal: Hamas, Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti's release

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday that she and two of her ministers had been reported to the International Criminal Court for alleged complicity in genocide in Gaza. 

Speaking in an interview with state television company RAI, Meloni said Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had both been referred, possibly as well as Roberto Cingolani, the head of the Leonardo defence group. 

- Reporting by Reuters

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani will join the talks on US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan in Egypt on Wednesday, an official briefed on the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.

"Following two days of talks, the Qatari Prime Minister is traveling to Egypt to meet with other mediators including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with the aim of pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement," the official said.

- Reporting by Reuters

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday for not yet having made any public statements or appearances on the second anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks.

"Today is October seventh. The evening has fallen, the Prime Minister of Israel, then and now, did not say a word, did not apologize, did not tweet, did not make a video, did not share what he feels. Nothing. Complete disconnection," Lapid wrote on X. 

A 22-year-old Palestinian man from a village south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank died in Israeli custody on Tuesday because of medical neglect, the office of Palestinian prisoners' affairs announced.

The news was first reported by the Wafa news agency. 

Ahmed Hatem Mohammed Khudairat had been held in administrative detention by Israel - meaning imprisoned without charge - since 23 May 2024. 

Khudairat had diabetes and was not afforded the necessary medication or nutrition, the prisoners' office said. He had recently lost a lot of weight and contracted scabies - a skin condition many held in Israeli prisons suffer from due to overcrowding and lack of hygiene. 

Since 7 October 2023, 78 Palestinians have died while in Israeli custody.

Since 1967 and the Israeli capture of the West Bank and Gaza, 315 Palestinians have died while in Israeli custody, the prisoners' office said. 

UN Commissioner Navi Pillay has criticised ​​​​​​US President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza plan for its exclusion of Palestinians from transitional governance, and said a ceasefire proposal does not alter the UN's finding that Israel is responsible for genocide.

Last week, Trump unveiled the controversial "peace" plan alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which gives general precedence to Israel's framing of the situation in Gaza and Israel's stated security concerns.

The plan, which has been widely criticised as "colonial thinking", proposes that Trump will serve alongside former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on a transitional committee that will oversee the strip.

In a wide-ranging interview with Middle East Eye on Monday, Pillay, an eminent South African judge who chairs the UN commission of inquiry that concluded Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, said that "the conclusion of the commission still stands."

Read more: Exclusive: UN commissioner says Trump's Gaza plan breaches international law

Hamas said on Tuesday that a second day of talks between the group and mediators Qatar and Egypt, as well as the US and Israel, have wrapped up in Sharm el-Sheikh with a focus on Israeli army withdrawal maps, and the schedule for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza.

Hamas said in a statement that it called for linking each stage of the release of Israeli captives with the stages of the full Israeli withdrawal - indicating that the captives will not be freed all at once. 

"The release of the last prisoner must coincide with the final withdrawal of Israeli forces," the statement said. 

Hamas also urged the need for international guarantees for a final ceasefire to ensure full Israeli withdrawal.

The Palestinian movement Hamas has said on Tuesday that Israel has failed to achieve any of its objectives in its genocidal war on Gaza and that it was becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage due to the abuses it was carrying out in the besieged enclave.

Senior Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said in a televised speech that despite laying waste to much of the enclave, Israel had failed in its attempts to expel Palestinians to other countries and that Israel's repeated attacks across the wider Middle East had exposed itself as a threat to the region.

"[The ongoing genocide] has resulted in the occupation facing unprecedented isolation and triggered [activists and] movements to stand with our people and recognise their independent state," he said.

Barhoum's comments came on the second anniversary of the start of the war, and a day after Hamas mediators arrived in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh to start indirect talks about ending the genocide.

Read more: Hamas says Israel failed to achieve any of its goals in Gaza on war anniversary

Parliamentarians from Turkey and Europe, including members of the European Parliament, have issued a plea for the immediate release of activists who took part in the Global Sumud Flotilla, currently detained by Israel.

The statement condemned Israel's illegal interception of the boats as a "blatant breach of international law", and urged governments to push for "the immediate and unconditional release of remaining detainees, with protection from ill-treatment and guaranteed medical care, legal counsel and consular access".

Israeli forces illegally boarded the boats which were carrying over 450 activists and aid to Gaza on 1 October.

While many of the detained activists have been deported, the statement emphasised that "many remain in a high security prison with no clarity on their status".

It added that detainees had reported being denied essential medicines, deprived of adequate food and water, being subjected to unsanitary conditions, humiliation, denial of legal counsel and consular access - concluding that this treatment constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law.

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Heavy Israeli shelling was reported across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as the genocide passed its two-year mark, with more than 67,000 Palestinians killed and the besieged enclave left largely in ruins.

Air strikes and artillery shelling targeted residential neighbourhoods in Gaza City, while displaced people and aid seekers were struck in Khan Younis.

As of 3pm local time, at least eight people had been killed, including three in the so-called "humanitarian zone" of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, an area where tens of thousands of Palestinians from northern Gaza have been forced to flee.

Local news outlets also reported that military vehicles and drones opened fire on Palestinian homes in the Tal al-Hawa and al-Nasr neighbourhoods of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, explosive-laden, remotely controlled Israeli vehicles were detonated in the Sabra area, west of the city, as residential buildings in the neighbourhood were also targeted.

The latest attacks came as the genocide in Gaza entered its third year.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces have killed at least 67,173 Palestinians, including 20,179 children. A further 9,500 are missing and more than 160,000 injured.

Read more: Israel marks two years of Gaza genocide with fresh bombings

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has reported that 29 of its team members have been killed while performing their duties since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

In a statement marking two years since Israel's onslaught on the enclave began, the organisation listed the two paramedics killed while attempting to rescue five-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024 as being among those killed by Israel. It also named the eight paramedics killed and buried alongside their ambulances by Israeli forces in March 2025.

The PRCS added that relentless Israeli bombardment had forced the closure of several its hospitals and medical centres, and that its teams continue to provide life-saving assistance through intensifying Israeli attacks.

"While we face severe shortages of fuel, medicine, and essential supplies, which have hindered the provision of vital medical and humanitarian services to our people in the Gaza Strip, we continue our efforts to reach those in need and those affected in the Gaza Strip," the statement read.

The society's president, Younis al-Khatib, urged the world "to stop the killing in the Gaza Strip, end this senseless destruction, close this dark chapter in history, and instead ensure that humanity, justice, and dignity prevail in Palestine".

A few days ago, on the eve of the second anniversary of Israel's genocide in Gaza, the Trump administration issued its latest ultimatum to the Palestinian people, framed as a "peace plan". 

It threatens Palestinians with more genocide unless they acquiesce in the US-Israeli project to continue to destroy their lives and homeland. 

The Palestinian Authority (PA), along with European, Arab and Muslim-majority states such as Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia - and even the United Nations and the Vatican's American pope - joined the chorus of support for this genocidal American threat, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, its ostensible co-author, agreed to under the guise of an Israeli "compromise".  

Evidently, this international consensus on supporting, or at least accepting, Israel's right to be and remain a Jewish supremacist state agrees that Israel's genocide of the Palestinians is not only justified as a means of safeguarding Israel's Jewish supremacy but also deserves to be rewarded. 

US President Donald Trump and the governments backing his latest plan to complete the genocide demand that the Palestinian resistance surrender to the genocidal state, sparing the Israeli military the arduous effort and cost of continuing the slaughter and the expulsion of survivors. 

The Arab League, under US orders, had already called last July for the Palestinian resistance to disarm and leave Gaza. 

Unsurprisingly, it is the victims of genocide who must surrender their few weapons, while the war criminals slaughtering them must continue to be armed to the teeth by the US and Europe - with the notable recent exception of Spain.

Read more: Trump’s plan for Gaza rewards Israel’s genocide and punishes its victims: Opinion by Joseph Massad

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy has been shot and wounded by Israeli forces during a raid on the occupied West Bank tank of Arraba, south of Jenin, Wafa news agency is reporting.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said their teams transferred the boy to hospital.

Israeli forces stormed the town earlier on Tuesday, firing live ammunition at civilians.

Hamas has outlined its key demands in the ongoing negotiations in Egypt.

Fawzi Barhoum, the group's spokesperson, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to "obstruct and thwart" the ceasefire talks and emphasised that Hamas's delegation is trying to "overcome all obstacles" to reach an agreement.

Barhoum listed the group's conditions as:

• A permanent and comprehensive ceasefire

• The complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza

• The unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip

• An immediate reconstruction of the territory, overseen by a Palestinian national body

• The return of displaced people to their homes

• The fair exchange of Israel captives and Palestinian prisoners