The White House announced Thursday that Israel had agreed to a US proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas said it was considering the proposal presented by President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
So far, negotiations aimed at ending the more than 19-month-old war in the besieged Palestinian enclave have failed to achieve any progress.
After a two-month truce, Israel resumed its offensive in the Gaza Strip in mid-March and intensified its military operations on May 17, claiming the goal was to eliminate Hamas and free the hostages still being held in the Strip, who were kidnapped during the movement's unprecedented attack on the Jewish state on October 7, 2023.
On Thursday, White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said that President Donald Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff "sent Hamas a ceasefire proposal that Israel accepted and endorsed."
She added that "Israel signed this proposal before sending it to Hamas."
Earlier, Hamas announced in a brief statement via Telegram that it was studying the proposal it received from Witkov "responsibly, in a manner that serves the interests of our people, provides relief, and achieves a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."
The Gaza Strip is suffering from a dire humanitarian situation amid a worsening hunger crisis, despite the start of aid deliveries after an Israeli blockade that lasted more than two months.
On the ground, at least 54 people were killed Thursday in Israeli airstrikes on various areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Civil Defense reported "23 martyrs, injuries, and a number of missing persons as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted a home of the Al-Qarnawi family east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip."
In the southern Gaza Strip, two people were killed "by Israeli forces' fire" near the American Company Aid Center in the Morag axis, two others south of Khan Yunis, and another in the Qizan al-Najjar area, according to the same source.
In response to a query from AFP regarding the bombing of the Al-Bureij refugee camp and the shooting near the aid center, the Israeli army said it was investigating these incidents.
In a statement, the World Food Programme (WFP) said it had struck "dozens of terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip" over the past day.
The statement noted that an employee of a contracting company that carries out engineering work for the Israeli military on behalf of the Ministry of Defense was killed Thursday in Shemaa Gaza.
Last week, Israel partially lifted the blockade it has imposed on the Gaza Strip since March 2, preventing any supplies from entering the territory, causing severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.
On Wednesday evening, "crowds of hungry people rushed to the warehouse... in search of pre-positioned food supplies," the WFP said in a statement, calling for "safe and unhindered humanitarian access to allow for the immediate and orderly distribution of food" in the Gaza Strip.
Footage filmed by AFP showed crowds of Palestinians carrying bags, boxes, and bundles of food supplies, as gunfire could be heard.
For his part, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi stressed in a phone call with European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaya Kallas that "the brutality of Israel's aggression on Gaza and the inhumanity of its systematic starvation policy have crossed all limits and violated all humanitarian values and international laws."
He said that "stopping the killing of the people of Gaza and the inhumane starvation policies implemented by the Israeli government must be the priority to which all international efforts must come together."
Likewise, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday condemned the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which he described as "collective punishment of the civilian population," in a sharp Russian criticism of Israel.
He said that "the measures taken by Israel" in response to the October 7 Hamas attack on the Jewish state "constitute collective punishment of the civilian population," and considered what is happening in Gaza "incomprehensible and indescribable."
On Tuesday, 47 people were injured at an aid distribution center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new US- and Israeli-backed organization that has implemented a new aid distribution system deemed by the United Nations to be in violation of humanitarian principles.
"We must be constantly vigilant to spare civilians... It is a moral imperative," said Julien Leirisson, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation to Israel and the occupied territories.
As Israeli forces continue their operations in Gaza, Al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip reported that the Israeli military is forcibly evacuating patients and staff.
"The occupying forces are currently forcibly evacuating patients and medical staff from Al-Awda Hospital in Tel al-Zaatar, the only hospital still operating in the northern Gaza Strip," the hospital said in a statement on Thursday.
The hospital added that this move comes after "days of siege and repeated targeting of the hospital, which poses a direct threat to the right to health and life and constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."
Earlier Thursday, the hospital issued a separate statement announcing that "the Israeli occupation forces had demanded that the hospital administration immediately evacuate." The statement explained that the evacuation had not yet taken place and that 97 people were inside the building, including 13 patients and injured people and 84 medical staff.
Furthermore, the Israeli army announced that it had intercepted a rocket fired from Yemen, after sirens sounded in central Israel and explosions were heard in the skies over Jerusalem.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse based on official sources. Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 57 remain in Gaza, with the army confirming the deaths of at least 34 of them.
Of the 251 people kidnapped from southern Israel in the October 7, 2023, attack and taken to Gaza, where they were held hostage, 57 remain in the Palestinian enclave.
In contrast, the devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 54,249 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
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