Israel truce team leaves Doha, blaming Hamas
Families of hostages upset over no deal, Gazans dying of hunger, violence
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Israel has recalled its negotiators from Doha after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday.
The official, who is close to the Mossad spymaster heading up the talks, accused Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar of sabotaging the diplomacy “as part of a wider effort to inflame this war over Ramadan.”
The warring sides had stepped up negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, on a six-week suspension of Israel’s offensive in return for the proposed release of 40 of the 130 hostages still held by the Palestinian militant group in Gaza.
Hamas has sought to parlay any deal into an end to the fighting and withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel has ruled this out, saying it would eventually resume efforts to dismantle the governance and military capabilities of Hamas.
Hamas also wants hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled Gaza City and surrounding areas southward during the first stage of the almost six-month-old war to be allowed back north.
The Israeli official said that Israel had agreed to double the number of Palestinians it would release in exchange for the hostages to 700-800 prisoners and allow some displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Tuesday that Hamas had made “delusional” demands, which it said showed the Palestinians were not interested in a deal.
In Tel Aviv, a crowd of around 300 family members of hostages and their supporters gathered outside the Israeli defense headquarters demanding a deal be done to release the captives. Some locked themselves inside cages in protest, holding placards with photos of their loved ones. “No price is too high,” one of the signs said.
Hamas has accused Israel of stalling at the talks while it carries out its military offensive.
The discussions in Doha are continuing as Palestinians in Gaza face severe shortages of food, medicine and hospital care, and concerns grow that famine will take hold.
US rejects Hamas plea to halt Gaza aiddrops
GAZA STRIP (AFP) — The United States said Tuesday it would continue airdrops of aid to besieged Gaza, despite pleas from Hamas to stop the practice after it said 18 people had died trying to reach food packages.
Hamas demanded that its enemy Israel instead allow more aid trucks to enter the war-torn territory, which the United Nations has warned is on the brink of a “man-made famine” after nearly six months of war.
Fighting raged unabated on Tuesday, a day after the U.N. Security Council passed its first resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and urging the release of the roughly 130 hostages Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 captives who are presumed dead.
The health ministry in Hamasrun Gaza said 12 people including some children were killed when an air strike hit a displacement camp late on Tuesday near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
And Israeli forces were continuing an assault on Gaza City’s largest hospital, and their forces have surrounded two other medical facilities in Khan Yunis.
The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis and “their lives are in danger.”
The war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has shattered Gaza’s infrastructure and aid agencies say all of its 2.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian help.
Desperate Gazans fight for food after airdrop deaths
Gazans waited again Tuesday in their hundreds for food to fall from the sky at beaches in the famine-stalked north, a day after nearly 20 died trying to get to parachutes carrying aid.
Twelve of them drowned trying to wade into the sea to get aid packages that went astray, according to the Hamas government and the Swiss-based EuroMed Human Rights Monitor.
They were “young men and children,” witnesses told AFP. “They didn’t know how to swim. They went and did not return.”
“Everyone is hungry, so there’s chaos to get food,” said Ahmed Al-Rifi, a mechanic from nearby Gaza City, much of which has been reduced to ruins by months of Israeli bombardment.
“Every day people get hurt or even killed fighting to get basic items like flour, canned food, water, lentils and beans,” he added.
Six of those who died amid the dunes and rubble on Monday were killed in stampedes, the government and Euro-Med said.
“The situation is deeply humiliating,” said taxi driver Uday Nasser.
“We are risking our lives just to receive aid. What should be a humanitarian effort has turned into fights and beatings.”