The China Mail - Hamas says new US-backed truce proposal does not meet demands

Negotiations to end more than 19 months of war have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in Gaza in March after a brief truce.

The White House said President Donald Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff had "submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed".

"Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, adding discussions were "continuing" with the militants.

Israel has not confirmed that it approved the new proposal.

Hamas sources said last week the group had accepted a US-backed deal, but on Thursday political bureau member Bassem Naim said the new version meant "the continuation of killing and famine... and 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," he added.

A source close to the group said the new version "is considered a retreat" from the previous one, which "included an American commitment regarding permanent ceasefire negotiations".

According to two sources close to the negotiations, the new proposal involves a 60-day truce, potentially extendable to 70 days, and the release of 10 living hostages and nine bodies in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during the first week.

- 'Starvation tactics' -

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire despite aid beginning to trickle back into the territory after a more than two-month Israeli blockade.

Food security experts say starvation is looming for one in five people.

Israel has also intensified its military offensive in what it says is a renewed push to destroy Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.

Gaza's civil defence said 54 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, including 23 in a strike on a home in Al-Bureij, and two by Israeli gunfire near a US-backed aid centre in the Morag axis, in the south.

The centre, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), is part of a new aid distribution system designed to keep supplies from Hamas. It has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.

"What is happening to us is degrading," said Gazan Sobhi Areef, who visited a GHF centre on Thursday.

"We go there and risk our lives just to get a bag of flour to feed our children."

Israel's military said it was not aware of the shooting near the aid centre. In Al-Bureij, it said it struck a "Hamas cell" and was reviewing reports of civilian deaths.

In a phone call with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of "systematic starvation tactics" that had "crossed all moral and legal boundaries".

The aid issue has come sharply into focus amid starvation fears and intense criticism of the GHF, which has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said aid trucks were entering via the Kerem Shalom crossing, and accused the UN of "trying to block" GHF's work.

The United Nations said it was doing its utmost to distribute the limited aid allowed in.

- 'Forced evacuation' -

Gazans who went to GHF's newly opened distribution centre in the central Netzarim corridor Thursday described a chaotic scene.

"Some people caused a big commotion and stormed the aid distribution point because people are very hungry," Mohammed Abdel Aal, 29, told AFP.

"I ran, like everyone else, trying to get an aid box."

He left empty-handed after forces at the facility "fired bullets and grenades at us, which forced us to retreat".

A 17-year-old from Al-Bureij, who gave his name as Yousef, offered a similar account, saying in spite of the gunfire, "hunger is stronger than fear".

Asked to comment, GHF said its "personnel encountered a tense and potentially dangerous crowd that refused to disperse".

To "ensure the safety of civilians and staff, non-lethal deterrents were deployed -- including smoke and warning shots into the ground", it said.

Medical facilities in Gaza, meanwhile, have come under increasing strain and repeated attack.

Al-Awda Hospital said Israeli troops were "carrying out a forced evacuation of patients and medical staff", adding it was "the only hospital that was still operating in the northern Gaza Strip".

Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 3,986 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,249, mostly civilians.

On Thursday, the military said an "employee of a contracting company that carries out engineering work" was killed in northern Gaza.

Israel also intercepted a missile fired from Yemen Thursday in an attack claimed by the country's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

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