US claims Israel has agreed to ceasefire plan

Hostage releases part of proposal Hamas has yet to accept

Israel has essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a senior US administration official said yesterday, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt.

International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. A deal would likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine.

The Israelis “have more or less accepted” the proposal, which includes the six-week ceasefire as well as the release by Hamas of hostages considered vulnerable, which such as the sick, the wounded, the elderly and women, said the official.

“Right now, the ball is in the court of Hamas and we are continuing to push this as hard as we possibly can,” the official said. Officials from Israel and from Hamas did not respond to requests for comment.

A senior Egyptian official said mediators Egypt and Qatar are expected to receive a response from Hamas during the Cairo talks scheduled to start overnight.

There is increasing criticism over the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive in northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of the conflict that began when the Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 250 hostages.

The European Union’s diplomatic service said many of the hundreds of Palestinians killed or wounded in the chaos surrounding an aid convoy on Friday were hit by Israeli army fire and urged an international investigation.

It said responsibility for the crisis lay with “restrictions imposed by the Israeli army and obstructions by violent extremist(s) to the supply of humanitarian aid”.

Gaza’s Health Ministry raised the death toll from Friday’s violence to 118 after two more bodies were recovered. It said the wounded remained at 760.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Israel organised Friday’s convoy, “and claims that we attacked the convoy intentionally and that we harmed people intentionally are baseless”.

Residents in northern Gaza say they are searching rubble and garbage for anything to feed their children, who barely eat one meal a day.

Many families have begun mixing animal and bird food with grain to bake bread.

At least 10 children have starved to death, according to hospital records in Gaza, the World Health Organisation said.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from the war has climbed to 30,320. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures, but says women and children make-up about two-thirds of those killed.

In the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s people now seek refuge, an Israeli airstrike struck tents outside the Emirati hospital, killing 11 people and wounding about 50, including health workers, the Health Ministry said. Israel’s military said it was targeting Islamic Jihad militants.

Israel’s air, sea and ground offensive has reduced much of densely populated northern Gaza to rubble.

The military told Palestinians to move south, but as many as 300,000 people are believed to have remained.

Roughly one in six children under 2 in the north suffer from acute malnutrition and wasting, “the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world”, Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme, said last week. “If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.”

People have overwhelmed trucks and grabbed what they can, Skau said, forcing the WFP to suspend deliveries to the north.

In the violence on Friday, people rushed about 30 trucks bringing a predawn delivery to the north.

Palestinians said nearby Israeli troops shot into the crowds. Israel said they fired warning shots toward the crowd and insisted many of the dead were trampled.

Doctors at hospitals in Gaza and a UN team that visited a hospital said large numbers of the wounded had been shot.

Ahmed Abdel Karim, being treated for gunshot wounds in his feet, said he had spent two days waiting for aid trucks to arrive.

“Everyone attacked and advanced on these trucks. Because of the large number, I could not get flour,” he said.

Radwan Abdel-Hai, a father of four young children, heard a rumour on Thursday an aid convoy was on its way. He and five others took a donkey cart and found a “sea of people” waiting.

“Tanks started firing at us,” he said. “As I ran back, I heard tank shells and gunfire. I heard people screaming. I saw people falling to the ground, some motionless.”

Many were shot in the back, he said.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.

Acknowledging the extreme need for food, US President Joe Biden said the US would look for other ways of delivery “including possibly a marine corridor”.

If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.

Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme