Hamas says it has given a “positive” response to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza but said further talks were needed on implementation.
It was not clear if Hamas’s statement meant it had accepted the proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump for a 60-day ceasefire. The militant group has been seeking guarantees that the initial truce with Israel would lead to a total end to the war, now nearly 21 months old.
In a statement issued late Friday, Hamas said it has “delivered the response to the mediators, which was positive.”
“The movement is ready in all seriousness to enter immediately into a round of negotiations on the mechanism to implement this framework,” it said, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within the span of a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid. Most were killed while trying to reach food distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization, while others were massed waiting for aid trucks connected to the UN or other humanitarian organizations, it said.
WARNING: This video contains distressing images | Dozens of aid organizations are calling for an immediate change to how aid is delivered in Gaza. They say Palestinians are left with an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot.
Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related,” meaning at or near its distribution sites. “Information keeps coming in,” she said. “This is ongoing and it is unacceptable.”
The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel’s military. In a statement on Friday, GHF cast doubt on the casualty figures and accused the UN of trying “to falsely smear our effort.” The army says it fires warnings shots as a crowd-control measure or opens fire if its troops are threatened.
The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders on Friday in northeast Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.
20 people killed Friday while seeking aid
Since the GHF began distributions in late May, witnesses have said almost daily that Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians on the roads leading to the food centres. To reach the sites, people must walk several kilometres through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road.
Officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least three Palestinians were killed on Friday on the way to GHF sites in the area of Rafah, in southern Gaza.
On Friday, in reaction to the UN report, the Israeli military said it was investigating reports of people killed and wounded while seeking aid and that it had given instructions to troops in the field based on “lessons learned” from reviewing the incidents. It said it was working at “minimizing possible friction between the population” and Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes.
Separately, witnesses have said Israeli troops open fire on crowds of Palestinians who gather in military-controlled zones to wait for aid trucks entering Gaza for the UN or other aid organizations not associated with the GHF. The crowds are usually made up of people desperate for food who grab supplies off the passing trucks, and armed gangs have also looted trucks.
On Friday, 17 people were killed waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis, in the Tahliya area, officials at Nasser Hospital said.
Three survivors told the AP they had gone to wait for the trucks in a military “red zone” in Khan Younis and that troops opened fire from a tank and drones.
It was a “crowd of people, may God help them, who want to eat and live,” said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in the leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had grabbed. “There was direct firing.”
Airstrikes also hit the Muwasi area on the southern end of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes are sheltering in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in the strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital.
Israel’s military said it was looking into Friday’s reported airstrikes. It had no immediate comment on the reported shootings surrounding the aid trucks.
UN investigates shootings near aid sites
In its statement reacting to the United Nations rights office report, the GHF accused the UN of taking its casualty figures “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and of “promoting Hamas’ false propaganda.”
Shamdasani, the UN rights office spokesperson, told the AP that the data “is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organizations.”
Rik Peeperkorn, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative for the Palestinian territories, said Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital operating in southern Gaza, receives dozens or hundreds of casualties every day, most coming from the vicinity of the food distribution sites. The overwhelmed hospital has become “one massive trauma ward,” he said. WHO supports Nasser Hospital and other health facilities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also said in late June that its field hospital near one of the GHF sites has been overwhelmed more than 20 times in the previous months by mass casualties. It said people had been on their way to the food distribution sites, and “the vast majority of patients suffered gunshot injuries.”
Also on Friday, Israel’s military said it was investigating after two soldiers were killed in combat in the north of Gaza. More than 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began, including more than 400 during the fighting in Gaza.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in the territory has passed 57,000. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry is run by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government, and its numbers are widely cited by the UN and international organizations.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
