Palestinians mourn over the bodies of men killed in an Israeli strike in al-Bureij refugee camp, before their funeral at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, April 11, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 57 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, health officials said Thursday (October 2, 2025), as Hamas was still considering its response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal for ending the nearly two-year war.

The plan requires Hamas to return all 48 hostages — about 20 of them thought by Israel to be alive — give up power and disarm in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and an end to fighting. However, the proposal, which has been accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sets no path to Palestinian statehood.

Palestinians long for the war to end but many believe the plan favours Israel, and a Hamas official told The Associated Press that some elements were unacceptable, without elaborating. Qatar and Egypt, two key mediators, said it requires more negotiations on certain elements.

Israel intercepts activist aid flotilla

At least 29 people were killed by Israeli fire in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. Officials there said 14 of them were killed in an Israeli military corridor where there have been frequent shootings around the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah said they had received 16 dead from Israeli strikes.

Doctors Without Borders said one of its occupational therapists was killed while waiting for a bus in Deir al-Balah, in a strike that seriously wounded four other people. The international charity described Omar Hayek, 42, as a “quiet man of profound kindness and professionalism.”

Hayek, who had recently fled south from Gaza City, is the 14th staffer from the organisation to have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, it said.

In Gaza City, health officials at Shifa Hospital said they received five bodies and several wounded people, adding that its staff are having difficulties reaching the hospital as Israel wages a major offensive aimed at occupying the city.

Other hospitals reported an additional seven deaths from Israeli fire. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only strikes militants and accuses Hamas of putting civilians in danger by operating in populated areas.

Israel has meanwhile intercepted most of the more than 40 vessels in a widely watched flotilla carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid for Palestinians and aiming to break Israel’s 18-year blockade of Gaza, according to organisers.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on social media that activists on board — including Greta Thunberg and several European lawmakers — were safe and were being taken to Israel to begin “procedures” for their deportation.

In the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian militant was killed and another arrested on Thursday after they carried out a car-ramming and shooting attack on an Israeli army checkpoint, the military said, adding that no soldiers were wounded.

Awaiting word from Hamas

A senior Hamas official told The Associated Press on Wednesday (October 1, 2025) that some points in the proposal agreed upon by Trump and Netanyahu are unacceptable and must be amended, without elaborating.

He said the official response will only come after consultations with other Palestinian factions. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media about the ongoing talks, the official said Hamas had conveyed its concerns to Qatar and Egypt.

The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that triggered the war killed some 1,200 people while 251 others were abducted. Most of the hostages have been freed under previous ceasefire deals.

The Trump plan would guarantee the flow of humanitarian aid and promises reconstruction in Gaza, placing its more than 2 million Palestinians under international governance.

Mounting toll in Gaza

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,200 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half the dead.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. UN agencies and many independent experts view its figures as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive there last month. On Thursday morning, smoke could be seen in northern Gaza and people were fleeing the area headed south.

Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their “last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter.

While Hamas’ military capabilities have been vastly depleted, it still carries out sporadic attacks. On Wednesday, at least seven projectiles were launched into Israel from Gaza, but all were either intercepted or fell in open areas, with no reports of casualties, the Israeli military said.

Published – October 03, 2025 07:08 am IST

People walk at the site of Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital where Palestinian cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who was a contractor for Reuters, was killed along with other journalists and people, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in this still image taken from video, August 25, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Israel carried out fresh air strikes on Gaza on Thursday and accused Hamas of backtracking on parts of a fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal ahead of an expected vote by its cabinet.

The truce, announced by mediators Qatar and the United States on Wednesday, would take effect on Sunday and involve the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, after which the terms of a permanent end to the war would be finalised.

Israel-Hamas ceasefire Updates

But the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Hamas had “reneged on parts of the agreement reached… in an effort to extort last-minute concessions”.

It also said that the Israeli cabinet, which has yet to approve the agreement, “will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement”.

Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri said there was “no basis” for Israel’s accusations.

In Gaza, the civil defence agency said Israel pounded several areas of the territory after the deal was announced, killing at least 75 people and wounding hundreds more.

The agreement followed months of fruitless negotiations to end the deadliest war in Gaza’s history and, if finalised, would pause hostilities one day before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

Netanyahu spoke with both US President Joe Biden and Trump on Wednesday, the Israeli leader’s office said, thanking them for their help securing the agreement but also cautioning that “final details” were still being worked on.

The war was triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

During the attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, Palestinian militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s ensuing campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,788 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Mixed feelings

In Israel and Gaza, there were celebrations welcoming the truce deal, but also anguish.

Saeed Alloush, who lives in north Gaza, said he and his loved ones were “waiting for the truce and were happy”, until overnight strikes killed his relatives.

“It was the happiest night since October 7” until “we received the news of the martyrdom of 40 people from the Alloush family”, he said.

In Tel Aviv, pensioner Simon Patya said he felt “great joy” that some hostages would return alive, but also “great sorrow for those who are returning in bags, and that will be a very strong blow, morally”.

Two far-right party leaders in Netanyahu’s cabinet have publicly opposed the agreement.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was a “dangerous deal”, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called it “disastrous”.

Israeli media said the government’s ratification of the agreement may be delayed, in part, by disagreements within the ruling coalition.

The deal followed intensified efforts from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani announced on Wednesday that the “two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal”.

“We hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement,” he said, adding that the three mediators would monitor its implementation.

During an initial 42-day ceasefire, 33 hostages would be released, the Qatari prime minister said, including women, “children, elderly people, as well as civilian ill people and wounded”.

Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza’s densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences”, he said.

Aid needed

Announcing the deal from the White House, Mr. Biden said he was “deeply satisfied this day has come”, calling the negotiations some of the “toughest” of his career.

He added that the second phase of the agreement, if finalised, would bring a “permanent end to the war”.

Envoys from both Trump’s incoming administration and Biden’s outgoing one had been present at the latest negotiations, with a senior Biden official saying the unlikely pairing had been a decisive factor in reaching the deal.

Mr. Trump on social media hailed the “EPIC ceasefire agreement”.

Biden said the deal would “surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families”.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also underscored the “importance of accelerating the entry of urgent humanitarian aid” into Gaza.

Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News cited a security source as saying coordination was “underway” to reopen the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt to allow in aid.

The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, facing an Israeli ban on its activities set to take effect later this month, welcomed the ceasefire deal.

“What’s needed is rapid, unhindered and uninterrupted humanitarian access and supplies to respond to the tremendous suffering caused by this war,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

A body is carried to the area outside the hospital after an Israeli army strike in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis in the central Gaza Strip on January 2, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday (January 9, 2025), as the conflict raged into a 16th month with no end in sight.

The Ministry said a total of 46,006 Palestinians have been killed and 1,09,378 wounded. It has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities, but does not say how many of the dead were fighters or civilians.

The Israeli Military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in residential areas. Israel has also repeatedly struck what it claims are militants hiding in shelters and hospitals, often killing women and children.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza. Israeli authorities believe at least a third of them were killed in the initial attack or have died in captivity.

The war has flattened large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its 2.3 million people, with many forced to flee multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sprawling tent camps along the coast with limited access to food and other essentials.

In recent weeks, Israel and Hamas have appeared to inch closer to an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. But the indirect talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have repeatedly stalled over the past year, and major obstacles remain.

Another strike in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, according to the Awda Hospital. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 26 people overnight and into Wednesday (December 11, 2024), including one that hit a home where displaced people were sheltering in the isolated north, killing 19, according to Palestinian medical officials.

That strike occurred in the northern town of Beit Lahiya near the border with Israel, according to the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the bodies. Hospital records show that a family of eight were among those killed, including four children, their parents and two grandparents.

Also Read | Gaza civil defence says 25 killed in Israeli strikes in territory’s north

Another strike in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, according to the Awda Hospital. Records show the dead included two children, their parents and three relatives.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has been waging a renewed offensive against Hamas militants in northern Gaza since early October. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and accuses militants of hiding among them, putting their lives in danger.

The army said militants in central Gaza fired four projectiles into Israel on Wednesday, two of which were intercepted. The other two fell in open areas, and there were no reports of casualties.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people, including children and older adults. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials. They say women and children make up more than half the dead but do not distinguish between fighters and civilians in their count. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days’ fuel left before they must restrict services, afer the U.N. warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The alarm came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza where Israeli security services said Friday, they had killed two commanders involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

Medics in the Palestinian territory said an overnight Israeli raid on Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.

The World Health Organization had already expressed grave concern Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in Gaza.

“It’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva.

Late Thursday, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: “The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt.”

In a statement, he said that for more than six weeks Israeli authorities “have been banning commercial imports” while “a surge in armed looting” has targeted aid convoys.

‘Absurd and false’

Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, Israel on October 6 began its air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.

Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency could not immediately give an exact toll after the latest Israeli raid, but the health ministry says Israel’s operation in the north has killed thousands.

The U.N. says more than 100,000 have been displaced from the area, and an oficial told the Security Council last week that people “are efectively starving”.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe they bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over “the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies”.

The unprecedented move drew a furious reaction from Netanyahu, who said in a statement: “Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions and accusations made against it.”

Netanyahu also said the judges were “driven by anti-Semitic hatred of Israel”.

On Friday he thanked his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban for his show of “moral clarity” for inviting him to visit in defiance of the ICC warrant which Orban branded “political”.

Hungary currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s top military supplier, called the warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous”, but other world leaders expressed support for the court.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said Friday Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot in the country.

Warrant for Hamas chief

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, saying it had grounds to suspect him of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the attacks on Israel that sparked the war, and including “sexual and gender-based violence” against hostages.

Israel said it killed Deif in July, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.

On the day the warrants were issued, a UN representative said an Israeli raid on Syria this week was “likely the deadliest” by Israel on the country so far. On Friday a war monitor said the strikes on Palmyra killed 92 pro-Iran fighters.

Israel again bombed Gaza on Friday.

In Gaza City, just south of Jabalia, one man who said he took his cousins to hospital afer a strike urged “the world… to put an end” to the war.

“We’ve had enough,” said Belal, who gave only his first name and said 10 members of his family had been killed. “I’m the only one lef,” he said.

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

Hamas triggered the war with the deadliest attack in Israeli history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The war expanded to Lebanon in late September when Israel escalated air strikes against Iran backed Hezbollah and later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon against the group, after nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross border clashes which Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas.

Lebanon’s health ministry says more than 3,580 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September.

Thousands of UN peacekeepers are based in southern Lebanon. They have reported coming under attack numerous times, blaming both Israel and “non-state” actors.

On Friday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Hezbollah was probably behind a rocket attack that hit their position and lef four Italian peacekeepers lightly hurt.

Israeli air strikes again hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold Friday, as well as south Lebanon, the oficial National News Agency said

Smoke rises from North Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Sderot, Israel, November 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Gaza’s civil defence agency said 30 people were killed on Sunday (November 17, 2024), including children, and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a building in the Palestinian territory’s north.

Israel’s army said it had conducted overnight strikes and hit “terrorist targets” in the area.

Also Read: Israel Palestine war updates

After the strike early Sunday, 30 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia, “including children and women”, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, updating a previous figure of 26.

Seven persons were injured, Mr. Bassal added. Earlier on Sunday he said at least 59 people were missing.

“The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling,” Mr. Bassal said.

AFP images showed men covered in dust scrambling to reach people under the rubble, as some of the bodies were taken away on a donkey-pulled cart.

Other AFP images showed the flattened building with broken concrete and twisted metal sticking out from the ruins as more bodies covered in blankets lay nearby.

Vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in already ravaged north Gaza, Israel on October 6 began a major air and ground assault that began in Jabalia and then expanded to Beit Lahia.

Israel’s army said there were “ongoing terrorist activities in the area of Beit Lahia”, adding: “Overnight, several strikes were conducted on terrorist targets in the area.”

“We emphasise that there have been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area,” the ministry said in a statement.

Hamas, which runs the territory, accused Israel of committing a “massacre” which it said is “a continuation of the genocidal war and revenge against unarmed civilians”.

‘Halt atrocities’

Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter, for “enabling this continued bloodshed”.

In a statement issued from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, he also demanded that “the United States force Israel to stop its aggression and comply with international law”.

The Palestinian foreign ministry urged the international community to act to “immediately halt these atrocities”.

Earlier on Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence said other Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people, including four women and three children, across the war-torn territory.

Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.

The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel has failed to meet United States demands to allow greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-old war, international aid organisations said on Tuesday (November 12, 2024).

The Biden administration last month called on Israel to “surge” more food and other emergency aid into Gaza, giving it a 30-day deadline that was expiring Tuesday. It warned that failure to comply could trigger U.S. laws requiring it to scale back military support as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel has announced a series of steps toward improving the situation. But U.S. officials recently signaled Israel still isn’t doing enough, though they have not said if they will take any action against it.

Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Saar, appeared to downplay the deadline, telling reporters on Monday he was confident “the issue would be solved.” The Biden administration may have less leverage after the reelection of Donald Trump, who was a staunch supporter of Israel in his first term.

Tuesday’s report, authored by eight international aid organizations, listed 19 measures of compliance with the U.S. demands. It said Israel had failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four.

An October 13 letter signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on Israel to, among other things: allow a minimum of 350 truckloads of goods to enter Gaza each day; open a fifth crossing into the besieged territory; allow people in Israeli-imposed coastal tent camps to move inland ahead of the winter; and ensure access for aid groups to hard-hit northern Gaza. It also called on Israel to halt legislation that would hinder the operations of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

Despite Israeli steps to increase the flow of aid, levels remain far below the U.S. benchmarks. The promised fifth crossing was set to open Tuesday, but residents remain crammed in the tent camps and access for aid workers to northern Gaza remains restricted. Israel also has pressed ahead with its laws against UNRWA.

“Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” the report said. “That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”

The report was co-signed by Anera, Care, MedGlobal, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller last week said Israel had made some progress, but needs to do more to meet the U.S. conditions. “What’s important when you see all of these steps taken is what that means for the results,” he said.

Israel launched a major offensive last month in northern Gaza, where it says Hamas militants had regrouped. The operation has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands. Israel has allowed almost no aid to enter the area, where tens of thousands of civilians have stayed despite evacuation orders.

Aid to Gaza plummeted in October, when just 34,000 tons of food entered, or less than half the previous month, according to Israeli data.

U.N. agencies say even less actually gets through due to Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting, and lawlessness that makes it difficult to collect and distribute aid on the Gaza side.

In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, according to Israeli figures, and 81 a day in the first week of November. The U.N. puts the number lower, at 37 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said the drop in the number of aid trucks in October was due to closures of the crossings for the Jewish high holidays and memorials marking the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war.

“October was a very weak month,” said an Israeli official, who spoke under condition of anonymity in line with military briefing rules. “But if you look at the November numbers, we are holding steady at around 50 trucks per day to northern Gaza and 150 per day to the rest of Gaza.”

Aid distribution is also being hampered by the U.N. and other agencies’ failure to collect aid that entered Gaza, leading to bottlenecks, and looting from Hamas and organized crime families in Gaza, he said. He estimated as much as 40% of aid is stolen on some days.

Israel on Monday announced a small expansion of its coastal “humanitarian zone,” where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter in sprawling tent camps. It also has announced additional steps, including connecting electricity for a desalination plant in the central Gaza town of Deir al Balah, and efforts to bring in supplies for the winter. On Tuesday, COGAT announced a “tactical” delivery of food and water to Beit Hanoun, one of the hardest-hit towns in northern Gaza.

The war began last year when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion have killed over 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many of those killed were militants. Around 90% of the population has been displaced, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps, with little food, water or hygiene facilities.

The United States has rushed billions of dollars in military aid to Israel during the war and has shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire while pressing it to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The amount of aid entering Gaza increased under U.S. pressure last spring after Israeli strikes killed seven aid workers before dwindling again.

Trump has promised to end the wars in the Middle East without saying how. He was a staunch defender of Israel during his previous term, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they have spoken three times since his reelection last week.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose role is mostly ceremonial, is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday.

Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who ran the office in charge of ensuring that U.S. military support complies with U.S. and international law, predicted the Biden would administration would find that Israel violated U.S. law by blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza.

“It’s undeniable that Israel has done that,” Blaha said. “They would really have to torture themselves to find that Israel hasn’t restricted … assistance.”

But he said the administration would likely cite U.S. national-security interests and waive restrictions on military support.

“If the past is prologue — no restrictions, and then kick the can down the road to the next administration.”

Gaza:

Israeli air strikes targeted Gaza on Wednesday ahead of ceasefire talks that the United States hopes will stop Iran striking Israel in retaliation for the killing of a Hamas leader.

Iran and its allies blamed Israel for the July 31 killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran during a visit for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not commented.

The West has urged Iran to stand down its threat to avenge his death, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed a senior commander of Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed rebel group in Lebanon.

The escalation has raised fears of a wider conflict after more than 10 months of war in Gaza, which has claimed nearly 40,000 lives, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

So far, there has been only one, week-long truce in the Gaza fighting, in November, when dozens of hostages in Gaza were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Ahead of Thursday’s ceasefire talks, a Hamas official said the Islamist movement was “continuing its consultations with the mediators”.

“Hamas really wants an end to the war and a ceasefire agreement on the basis of the (Biden) plan,” another Hamas official said, referring to a proposal US President Joe Biden laid out on May 31.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday detailed its conditions for a truce, including “a veto on certain prisoners” being released from its jails.

Biden said on Tuesday that a Gaza ceasefire deal could deter Iran from attacking Israel.

Asked if a truce between Israel and Hamas could stave off an Iranian assault, Biden said: “That’s my expectation”. He added that while negotiations were “getting hard”, he was “not giving up”.

His envoy for the conflict, Amos Hochstein, was in Beirut on Wednesday where he warned the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire.

“There is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay,” he said after talks with Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

Iran has rejected Western calls for restraint, with foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani saying the demand “brazenly asks Iran to take no deterrent action against a regime which has violated its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Israel on ‘high alert’

Israeli President Isacc Herzog said on social media platform X that the country remained on “high alert”.

“I want to express my appreciation and thanks to our allies standing united with us in the face of the hate-filled threats of the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies,” he said.

The escalation has prompted Western governments to issue advisories against travel to Lebanon as well as prepare contingency plans to evacuate their nationals from the region if full-scale war breaks out.

A ferry seen off Limassol, Cyprus was on standby to provide assistance “in the event of an evacuation of the conflict zone”, a spokesperson for its charterer said.

Fearing an attack by Iran and Hezbollah, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art said it had stashed away its most valuable pieces, including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt.

“In the last three, four, five days, when this new threat from Hezbollah and from Iran came on the table again, we understood that we needed to take other precautions,” said museum director Tania Coen-Uzzielli.

The Biden administration approved more than $20 billion in new weapons sales to Israel on Tuesday, including 50 F-15 fighter jets.

The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a guided missile submarine to the region in support of Israel.

Gaza death count nears 40,000

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Hamas also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,965 people, according to the latest count from the territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and Hamas deaths.

In the latest violence, the Israeli military said it carried out dozens of air strikes across the Gaza Strip.

It said its troops were “continuing precise, intelligence-based operational activity in the area of Tel al-Sultan” in the southern city of Rafah.

In the past 24 hours, the army said it had “struck over 40” sites across Gaza, including structures from which Hamas fired anti-tank missiles.

The Gaza civil defence agency said its emergency teams pulled the bodies of four people from the same family from the rubble of a bombed apartment in the Qatari-built residential complex of Hamad, near Khan Yunis.

Residents of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp said it was struck by a missile after midnight.

“We were sleeping… and were surprised by a missile targeting the neighbours, children, their father and mother,” Jihad al-Sharif told AFPTV.

“The explosion was terrible,” he said, adding his family emerged to find the remains of children in the middle of the street.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)