Media Report 2025.06.01
‘Annihilation is coming’
Daily Telegraph | 1 June 2025
Gaza: Israel said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated”, as US President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close”.
It came amid dire conditions on the ground, with the United Nations yet again warning Gaza’s entire population was at risk of famine – not long after being forced to retract claims that 14,000 children would die in days.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Hamas must agree to a ceasefire proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff or be destroyed, after the Palestinian group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands.
“The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: Accept the terms of the Witkoff Deal for the release of the hostages – or be annihilated.”
Israel has repeatedly said that destruction of the militant group was a key aim.
Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war in Gaza have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in March following a short-lived truce.
In the United States, Trump told reporters: “They’re very close to an agreement on Gaza”, adding: “We’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow.” All the while, food shortages in Gaza persisted, with aid only trickling in after the partial lifting by Israel of a more than two-month blockade.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, on Friday called Gaza “the hungriest place on earth”.
Later, the UN condemned the “looting of large quantities of medical equipment” and other supplies “intended for malnourished children” from one of its Gaza warehouses by armed individuals.
This was most likely Hamas gunmen.
Aid groups have previously warned that desperation for food and medicine among Gazans was causing security to deteriorate.
Israel has meanwhile doubled down on its settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, while defying calls from French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders for a two-state solution.
This week it announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the West Bank. London called the move a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood, and UN chief Antonio Guterres’ spokesman said it pushed efforts towards a two-state solution “in the wrong direction”.
On Friday, Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the Palestinian territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank –- considered illegal under international law –- are seen as a major obstacle to a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Katz framed the move as a direct rebuke to Macron and others pushing for recognition of a Palestinian state. Israel’s foreign ministry accused the French president of a “crusade against the Jewish state”.
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Hamas seeks amendments to US ceasefire proposal
Canberra Times / AAP | 1 June 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8980817/hamas-seeks-amendments-to-us-ceasefire-proposal/
Hamas is seeking amendments to the latest US ceasefire proposal for Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable”.
Israeli officials have approved the US proposal for a temporary ceasefire in the nearly 20-month war.
A Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks, said proposed amendments focused on “the US guarantees, the timing of hostage release, the delivery of aid and the withdrawal of Israeli forces”.
A separate Hamas statement said the proposal aims for a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an ensured flow of aid.
It said 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 others would be released ” in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners.”
Fifty-eight hostages remain and Israel believes 35 are dead.
Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was unimpressed with Hamas’ response.
“It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” he wrote on X.
As hopes for a ceasefire ramp up, desperation rises inside Gaza.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip blocked and offloaded dozens of food trucks, the UN World Food Program says, as desperation mounts following Israel’s months-long aid blockade while talks of a ceasefire inch forward.
The World Food Program said 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks could reach their destination.
The nearly three-month Israeli aid blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of over two million to the brink of famine.
The World Food Program said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high despite the aid that’s entering now.
“We need to flood communities with food for the next few days to calm anxieties and rebuild the trust with communities that more food is coming,” it said in a statement, adding that it has over 140,000 metric tons of food, enough to feed Gazans for two months, ready to be brought in.
A witness in the southern city of Khan Younis told The Associated Press the UN convoy was stopped at a makeshift roadblock and offloaded by desperate civilians in their thousands.
The UN says it has been unable to get enough aid in because of fighting.
A new US and Israeli-backed foundation started operations in Gaza this week, distributing food at several sites in a chaotic rollout.
Israel says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation eventually will replace the aid operation that the UN and others have carried out during nearly 20 months of war.
It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid.
The UN denies that a significant diversion takes place.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation works with armed contractors, which it says are needed to distribute food safely.
Aid groups have accused the foundation of militarising aid.
Israel continued its military campaign across Gaza, saying it struck dozens of targets over the past day.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
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Hamas suggests changes in response to Gaza ceasefire proposal
Israel and US envoy reject group’s proposal to free 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in exchange for release of Palestinian prisoners
The Guardian | Lorenzo Tondo & William Christou | 1 June 2025
Hamas said on Saturday that it had submitted its response containing some amendments to a proposal presented by Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to mediators, the most concrete sign of progress towards a ceasefire since March.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that under the deal, it will release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners – a change to the US’s latest proposal that will make it more difficult for Israel to resume fighting if talks on a permanent ceasefire are not completed by the end of the truce.
The updated proposal includes a demand for an end to the war, which had previously been a red line for Israel, and envisions the release of the Israelis held captive in Gaza being spread out more throughout the 60-day truce, rather than in two batches on the first and seventh day as the US offer suggested.
Witkoff responded on Saturday evening by saying the Hamas response was “totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.
“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” he said. “That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire.”
The Israeli prime minister’s office said: “While Israel has agreed to the updated Witkoff outline for the release of our hostages, Hamas continues to adhere to its refusal … Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
A senior Hamas official responded that the group “did not reject” the hostage release proposal, and that Witkoff’s response to their answer was “unfair” and showed “complete bias” in favour of Israel.
Several rallies were held on Saturday evening across Israel demanding a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.
Speaking at the Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Sharon Aloni Cunio, a freed hostage whose husband, David Cunio, remains in captivity, said: “Now is the time to make a deal. Return the fathers to our children. Don’t make them orphans.”
A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said: “We call upon the prime minister from here. The time has come for a deal. For the sake of our children’s future. One comprehensive deal to bring them all home. Right now.”
The Hamas response to the US proposal appears close to a previously reported version of the deal, which specified that the group would release 10 hostages, as well as a number of hostages’ remains, during the ceasefire in exchange for 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
The Hamas statement said: “This proposal aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip.”
It said its response came “after conducting a round of national consultations”.
“There are some notes and amendments to some points, especially on the US guarantees, the timing of hostage release, the delivery of aid and the withdrawal of Israeli forces,” a senior official with the group told the Associated Press.
The US ceasefire proposal reportedly involves a 60-day pause in fighting and a redoubling of efforts towards long-term peace, as well as guarantees from Israel that it will not resume its offensive after Hamas releases hostages, which the country did in March.
Israeli negotiators accepted the deal, but Hamas’s initial reaction to the proposal was lukewarm. On Friday, the militant group said it was holding consultations with other factions operating under its rule in Gaza including Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Hamas’s response came after two days in which the militant group had indicated that the US proposal was more biased in favour of Israel than previous ones.
A leading Hamas official, Basem Naim, said on Thursday that the US proposal “does not respond to any of our people’s demands”, including lifting the humanitarian blockade on the Gaza Strip that has led to famine-like conditions among the population of 2 million.
The group’s reaction provoked the ire of their Israeli counterparts. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, threatened the group on Friday with “annihilation” if it did not accept. “The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff deal’ for the release of the hostages – or be annihilated,” said Katz.
Israel has not yet officially responded to Hamas’s response, but an official told Israeli reporters on condition of anonymity that Jerusalem was treating Hamas’s changes as an “effective rejection”.
Deep differences between Hamas and Israel have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire that broke down in March after only two months.
Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely and be dismantled as a military and governing force, and that all 58 hostages still held in Gaza be returned before it will agree to end the war.
The Israeli government fears that a lasting ceasefire and withdrawal would leave Hamas with significant influence in Gaza, even if it surrenders formal power. With time, the Israelis worry Hamas might be able to rebuild its military and launch more 7 October-style attacks.
On the other hand, Hamas fears that Israel could break the ceasefire – as it did last March – and resume the war, which the Israeli government would be permitted to do after 60 days under the terms of the deal.
A previous ceasefire collapsed in mid-March after Israel refused to move to a planned second phase that could have led to a permanent end to the war, and instead restarted its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Negotiators have met in the months since in an attempt to reach a ceasefire, with little progress to show for it.
More than 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the besieged Palestinian territory on 7 October 2023. The Israeli offensive was in retaliation for a Hamas attack on the same day, which saw the group kill about 1,200 people and take 250 hostages. About 20 hostages are believed to still be alive and their return is a key demand of ceasefire negotiations.
As negotiations over a ceasefire continued, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has ramped up. At least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza over the last 24 hours, health officials said, while 72 people were killed on Thursday.
Israel stopped allowing almost all humanitarian aid into Gaza when it resumed hostilities in the Palestinian territory. The nearly three-month Israeli blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of more than 2 million to the brink of famine. While pressure has slightly eased in recent days as Israel allowed some aid to enter, aid organisations say far from enough food is getting in.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the World Food Programme said on Saturday. The UN aid agency had been allowed to bring 77 trucks loaded with flour into Gaza overnight, but the trucks were stopped en route by crowds of hungry people.
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Gaza is ‘hungriest place on Earth’ with all its people at risk of famine, says UN
Mission to deliver help is ‘one of most obstructed aid operations in recent history’, humanitarian agency says
The Guardian | Lorenzo Tondo | 31 May 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/30/gaza-hungriest-place-earth-all-people-risk-famine-un
Gaza is “the hungriest place on Earth”, according to the UN, which has warned that the Palestinian territory’s entire population is at risk of famine.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the territory was “the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine. One hundred per cent of the population at risk of famine,” he said on Friday.
“Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth.”
Laerke detailed the difficulties faced by the UN in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Nine hundred trucks of humanitarian aid had been authorised by Israel to enter the strip since the blockade was partially lifted, but so far only 600 had been off-loaded on the Gaza side of the border, and a smaller number of shipments had then been picked up for distribution within the territory because of security considerations, he said.
Laerke said the mission to deliver aid was “in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”.
Once truckloads entered Gaza, they were often “swarmed by desperate people”, he said.
Daniel Meron, Israel’s UN ambassador, rejected the claim, saying UN agencies “cherry-pick the facts to paint an alternative version of reality and demonise Israel”.
“In a desperate effort to remain relevant, they lambast the best efforts of Israel and its partners to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilian population. UN feeds Hamas, we make sure aid gets to those in need,” he wrote on X.
In a reflection of the increasingly dire conditions inside the territory, a UN spokesperson said late on Friday that “armed individuals” had raided a warehouse at a field hospital in Deir al-Balah, “looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines, nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children”.
Hamas said on Friday it was “thoroughly reviewing” Israel’s response to a US proposal for a Gaza ceasefire deal, although one of the militant group’s officials said the plan did not meet any of the Palestinians’ “just and legitimate demands”.
Hamas has described the latest proposal as more biased in favour of Israel than previous versions. It said it was consulting other “Palestinian factions”, a term referring to other groups operating under Hamas’s rule in Gaza, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Late on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu told the families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel had accepted the draft deal presented by Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy.
Deep differences between Hamas and Israel have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire that broke down in March after only two months when Israel renewed its offensive.
Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely and be dismantled as a military and governing force, and that all 58 hostages still held in Gaza be returned before it will agree to end the war.
The Israeli government fears a lasting ceasefire and withdrawal would leave Hamas with significant influence in Gaza, even if it surrenders formal power. The Israelis are concerned that with time Hamas may be able to rebuild its military might and eventually launch more 7 October-style attacks.
On the other hand, Hamas fears Israel could break the ceasefire again and resume the war, which the Israeli government would be permitted to do after 60 days under the deal.
The militant group has rejected the demand to give up its weapons and says Israel must pull its troops out of Gaza and commit to ending the war.
Netanyahu also faces political constraints: his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war too soon. That would leave the prime minister more vulnerable to prosecution on longstanding corruption charges and to investigations into the failures surrounding the Hamas attack in 2023.
The far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on Friday it was time to use “full force” in Gaza. “Mr Prime Minister, after Hamas rejected the deal proposal again – there are no more excuses,” Ben-Gvir said on his Telegram channel. “The confusion, the shuffling and the weakness must end. We have already missed too many opportunities. It is time to go in with full force, without blinking, to destroy, and kill Hamas to the last one.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private logistics group backed by the US and endorsed by Israel, expanded its food distribution to a third site on Thursday.
Heavily criticised by the UN and other aid groups as inadequate and flawed, the group’s operation began this week in Gaza after Israel’s 11-week blockade on aid entering the territory.
Laerke said that by having people collect aid rather than delivering it to them where they are, they become a target for looters once they leave the site. “It is so desperate and tragic and frustrating, and wildly unhumanitarian,” he said.
The launch was marred by tumultuous scenes on Tuesday when Israeli troops opened fire on a large crowd, killing at least one civilian and injuring dozens. The chaotic start to the operation has raised international pressure on Israel to get more food in and halt the fighting in Gaza. GHF says it has so far supplied about 1.8m meals, and plans to open more sites in the coming weeks.
Netanyahu has faced growing criticism from key international allies in recent days.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday that abandoning war-torn Gaza to its fate and giving Israel a “free pass” would kill the west’s credibility with the rest of the world.
“If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we will kill our credibility,” Macron told a top defence forum in Singapore, adding: “And this is why we do reject double standard.”
Israel responded by accusing the French president of undertaking a “crusade against the Jewish state”.
“There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement, defending its efforts to allow in aid. “But instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state. No doubt its national day will be October 7.”
Macron said recognition of a Palestinian state with conditions was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity”.
A “hardened stance” would mean dropping an assumption that human rights were being respected, and applying sanctions, he said.
Israeli jets continued to pound Gaza on Friday, killing at least 14 people in Jabaliya refugee camp, according to medics who received the bodies at al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. The previous day, Israeli strikes killed 45 people, including 23 in the Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers said.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the devastating Hamas attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. The campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say, and left the territory in ruins.
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