Israel / Palestine

Hamas confirmed on Thursday that it has responded to an Israeli proposal for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, after more than two weeks of indirect talks in Qatar have failed to yield a truce.

A senior UN official on Wednesday urged the Security Council to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages, warning that the war has become “a nightmare of historic proportions” and it is “long past time” for the fighting to end and for hostages to return home.

Twenty-eight countries including Britain, Japan and a host of European nations issued a joint statement Monday saying the war in Gaza “must end now” — the latest sign of allies’ sharpening language as Israel’s isolation deepens.

A coalition of countries has announced at a meeting in the Colombian capital of Bogota that they will pursue accountability for Israeli abuses in Gaza, including by preventing the transfer of weapons to Israel. The two-day meeting concluded on Wednesday with two dozen countries agreeing to six measures to “restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

As civilians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza are being killed, speakers in the Security Council today urged Israel to lift restrictions on aid operations in the Strip, called for a return to United Nations-led delivery mechanisms, and stressed the urgent need for both the release of hostages and a ceasefire.

The EU and Israel have reached an agreement to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, with deliveries to take place in the "coming days", the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas announced on Thursday. The breakthrough comes after months of back and forth between the EU and Israel over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, as Israel escalates its offensive against Hamas. 

Mohammed Baraka, who served at the EU border assistance mission at Rafah in southern Gaza and was evacuated to Egypt when the war broke out, has accused Brussels officials of “coldly” dismissing him from his job by email and “abandoning” a loyal employee. He now has no way of returning to Gaza but also no right to remain in Egypt and no possibility of going anywhere else because, he says, he has no papers due to the hasty evacuation in 2023.

UN humanitarians have warned that the catastrophic conditions in Gaza are worsening, as tents, schools, homes and medical facilities come under attack, and fuel supplies run out. What little fuel remains is powering essential operations, but it is running out fast, and there are virtually no additional accessible stocks left, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, has called on countries to cut off all trade and financial ties with Israel, including a full arms embargo, and withdraw international support for what she termed an “economy of genocide”. Albanese made the comments in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday as she presented her latest report, which named dozens of companies she said were involved in supporting Israeli repression and violence towards Palestinians.

Israel has escalated its offensive in Gaza before imminent talks about a ceasefire, with warships and artillery launching one of the deadliest and most intense bombardments in the devastated Palestinian territory for many months. … Despite the new wave of violence in Gaza, hopes of a ceasefire have risen after Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that Israel had accepted the terms of a potential deal with Hamas.