Live: Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives
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At least 67 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since dawn, 11 of whom were killed while waiting for humanitarian aid, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday, citing hospital sources.
The victims include the director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan al-Sultan.
Sultan was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli attack on a residential building southwest of Gaza City.
Medical Aid for Palestinians said in May that 1,400 healthcare workers had been killed and that Israel systematically targets medical staff. A Channel Four documentary called Gaza Doctors Under Attack investigates Israeli attacks on hospitals, doctors and medical staff and will be broadcast on Wednesday evening.
Hamas said it was studying what US President Donald Trump called a "final" ceasefire proposal for Gaza.
The group said it was "conducting national consultations" to discuss proposals it had received from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Hamas said it aimed "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".
Trump said Israel had agreed to a 60-day truce, during which he would work with all parties "to end the War".
He also threatened Hamas if they did not accept the deal, stating: "it will not get better - IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE".
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," he said.
Ahmed Hrustanovic is a 39-year-old imam from Srebrenica, a town in Bosnia Herzegovina that became notorious after at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were summarily executed by Serb forces in July 1995.
He was nine at the time, and living in an accommodation centre for displaced people near the city of Tuzla, having been deported from Srebrenica in 1993 with his mother and sister.
But the vast majority of Ahmed's family, including his father, remained in Srebrenica.
He recalls the fear everyone felt for their loved ones upon hearing the news that Srebrenica had fallen to Serb forces.
“It was clear to us all what was about to happen to our loved ones,” he said, speaking to Middle East Eye at the mosque in the centre of the town where he works.
Thirty years on from the killings, widely branded a genocide, Hrustanovic sees parallels in Israel's attack on Gaza - also widely assessed by genocide scholars to be a genocide.
“Unfortunately, we’re witnesses that the international community does not exist the way we’re used to - that it would stand on the side of justice, democracy. Democracy no longer exists in the world; you can see that it’s only the law of the strongest that counts,” Hrustanovic said.
Read more: Srebrenica survivors draw parallels with Gaza 30 years after massacre
An Israeli air strike targeting an apartment in Gaza City has killed Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, along with his wife and several of their children, Wafa news agency reported. All of them were transferred to Al-Shifa hospital, where they were pronounced dead.
Sultan had spent recent months repeatedly calling on the international community to secure the safety of medical teams in Gaza.
In a separate attack on Wednesday, two Palestinians were killed and others wounded when Israeli forces bombed al-Zaytoun School in Gaza City.
Hamas is reviewing new ceasefire proposals from mediators, according to a statement it released on Wednesday.
The group is aiming for an agreement that would end the war and ensure the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
At 7am on 6 March, three men turned up at Lujane's door.
They said they were from the British Transport Police (BTP) and asked her to come for an interview regarding a video in which, several months before, she had been seen chanting pro-Palestine chants on the London Underground.
Lujane, a Welsh activist who had been organising for Palestine solidarity in Cardiff since October 2023, was accustomed to being closely monitored by the police. But the men standing at her front door were in plain clothes and did not have a warrant.
"It was quite scary, because they didn't really look like police officers. I don’t remember them saying I was under arrest. They just said, 'You need to come with us for an interview'," Lujane told Middle East Eye.
"I completely panicked, because it's three men who don't really look like police officers. They're casually dressed, and they're saying they were British Transport Police.
"They didn't really give me a chance. They ended up coming into the house after I asked them not to. And then they said, 'You have to come with us'. And they stood at the door until I got dressed."
Read more: How UK police are hunting pro-Palestine activists
Switzerland has initiated proceedings to dissolve the Geneva branch of the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), citing legal shortcomings in its establishment.
The GHF began operating in late May, following a three-month total blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces.
The organisation is registered in the US state of Delaware and had registered an affiliate in Geneva on 12 February.
"The ESA may order the dissolution of the foundation if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period," the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) said in a creditors notice published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce on Wednesday.
The ESA told Reuters the GHF had not fulfilled certain legal requirements including having the correct number of board members, a postal address or a Swiss bank account.
"GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland... and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered [branch]," the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities issued a separate legal notice to the GHF to remedy within 30 days "deficiencies in the organisation" or face potential action.
More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and around 4,000 wounded by Israeli troops while attempting to access food and aid supplies.
On Tuesday, more than 170 NGOs called for immediate action to end the aid scheme, and for reverting back to United Nations-led aid coordination. mechanisms.
More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes since dawn, according to Al Jazeera.
The report said that there has been a very significant expansion of ground operations in border towns and villages, specifically in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and the eastern part of Gaza City.
The interior ministry in Gaza has today ordered the leader of a well-armed Bedouin gang, Yasser Abu Shabab, to surrender in 10 days and face trial, accusing him of treason.
Hamas, which accuses Abu Shabab of looting UN aid trucks and says that he is backed by Israel, has sent some of its top fighters to kill him, two Hamas sources and two other sources familiar with the situation told Reuters last month.
A court urged Palestinians to inform Hamas security officials about the whereabouts of Abu Shabab, who has so far remained beyond their reach in the Rafah area of southern Gaza held by Israeli troops. There was no immediate response from his group to the surrender order.
Israel has said it has backed some of Gaza's clans against Hamas, but has not said which.
The British government is being rocked by a growing public backlash to Israel’s 21-month slaughter in Gaza and the UK’s active collusion in it.
That fallout came to a head over the weekend, when punk group Bob Vylan led Glastonbury’s crowds in chanting: “Death, death to the IDF,” referencing the Israeli army - a performance aired live on the BBC, which later expressed regret for not cutting the feed. The Irish band Kneecap then focused audience rage towards British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leading the crowd in a chant cursing his name.
Other musicians also used their sets to vent their indignation at British complicity in what the International Court of Justice ruled in early 2024 to be a “plausible” genocide.
Their grievances are well-founded.
The UK government is still supplying parts for the F-35 fighter jets dropping bombs on Gaza’s people. It has massively increased UK arms exports to Israel, even while stating that it cut them, while shipping US and German weapons through the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri on Cyprus. It is operating spy missions over Gaza on Israel’s behalf.
Read more: The real crimes are taking place in Gaza, not at Glastonbury or Brize Norton Opinion by Jonathan Cook
A Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire proposal, the Associated Press reported, citing an Egyptian official.
The latest outline of the ceasefire deal, to which Israeli minister Ron Dermer gave a positive response to the US, does not include a clear Israeli commitment to end the war, but offers strong assurances on the issue, an Israeli source told Haaretz.
According to the newly proposed document, the mediators will be responsible for ensuring that negotiations continue "under certain conditions" if no agreement is reached during the 60-day ceasefire.
"It's not just the wording," the source said.
"It's also the overall tone, which allows Hamas to see how much the Americans want to, and are able to, push Israel in that direction."
The Iranian military loaded naval mines onto vessels in the Persian Gulf last month, in a possible move aimed at gearing up to blockade the Strait of Hormuz following Israel's strikes on sites across Iran, according to two US officials, Reuters news agency reported.
The previously unreported preparations, which were detected by US intelligence, occurred some time after Israel launched its initial missile attack against Iran on 13 June, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
The loading of the mines - which have not been deployed in the strait - suggests that Tehran may have been serious about closing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, a move that would have escalated an already-spiralling conflict and severely hobbled global commerce.
About one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz and a blockage would likely have spiked world energy prices.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said there is a “large majority” in both the cabinet and among the public in favour of a ceasefire and a deal to secure the release of captives, according to Haaretz.
“If the opportunity comes, it must not be missed,” Sa’ar said.
Einav Zangauker, mother of a captive in Gaza, meanwhile, said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told her he does not need backing from far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to pass a deal with Hamas.
In a post on X, Zangauker called on Netanyahu to override the ministers' attempts to prevent a possible agreement.
More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn today, Al Jazeera reported, citing sources in local hospitals.
Among the dozens of fatalities were six people killed and several others wounded when Israeli forces shelled tents sheltering displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. Another ten people, including children, were injured in a separate strike on tents in the same area, according to the Wafa news agency.
In central Gaza City, four members of the Zeno family, father Ahmed Ayyad Zeno, his wife Ayat, and their daughters Zahra and Obaida, were killed when Israeli forces struck their home on Jaffa Street. The house was almost completely destroyed. Emergency crews continue to search the rubble amid fears of further casualties.
In Deir al-Balah, medical sources said ten people were injured when an Israeli drone struck a tent near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Additional injuries were reported in the Al-Karama neighbourhood, northwest of Gaza City, following drone fire.
