The US ‘deal’ plan is being negotiated back and forth ….
Israel wants Hamas gone….
Any plan that will make it thru IS going to go that way it would seem…
Israeli strikes and food issues are pressure on Hamas also…
(Trump says he’s unhappy…BUT?)
Several rep’s from Middle East Countries have been barred from safely visiting Gaza by Israel….
Protests by Israeli’s in support of hostage returns continue in Israel….
Iran is increasing Uranium of bomb grade….
Trump & Co ain’t doing too good in the Middle East….
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Hamas said it has not rejected a ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, a senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, told Reuters. Naim said Israel’s response to Witkoff’s proposal was incompatible with what the group agreed on, adding that the US envoy’s position towards the group was “unfair” and showed “complete bias” towards Israel. Witkoff said Hamas’s response to the US’s ceasefire proposal is “totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.
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Hamas said it had submitted its response on a ceasefire proposal presented by Witkoff to mediators. 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 a number of Palestinian prisoners.
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Israel’s military has confirmed it killed Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Sinwar, on 13 May, Reuters reports. The IDF said the airstrike that killed Sinwar also killed Mohammad Sabaneh, the commander of Hamas’s Rafah brigade, and Mahdi Quara, the commander of Hamas’s South Khan Younis battalion. The Israeli army said they were “operating in an underground command and control centre, under the European hospital in Khan Younis, deliberately endangering the civilian population in and around the hospital”.
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Palestinians in the Gaza Strip blocked and off-loaded dozens of food trucks, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Saturday, as desperation mounts after Israel’s months-long blockade. The WFP said that 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks were able to reach their destination. The WFP said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high despite the food aid that is entering now.
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Israel has said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated”, as Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close”. On Friday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said Hamas must agree to a ceasefire proposal presented by the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, or be destroyed, after the group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands. Hamas said it was still considering the text.
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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’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), also 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”.
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Israel is setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza that is making the whole world more dangerous, Norway’s international development minister has warned. “For the last one and a half years we have seen very low respect for international law in the war in Gaza and in recent months it is worse than ever before,” Åsmund Aukrust said. “So for the Norwegian government it is very important to protest against this, to condemn this very clear violation.”
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The foreign ministers of five Arab countries who had planned to visit the occupied West Bank this weekend on Saturday condemned Israel’s decision to block their plans. Ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been expected to take part alongside Turkey and the secretary-general of the Arab League. Israel had announced late on Friday that it would not cooperate, effectively blocking the visit as it controls the territory’s borders and airspace.
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The Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours. It said three people were shot by Israeli gunfire early on Saturday morning in the southern city of Rafah. Three other people were killed, parents and a child, when their car was struck in Gaza City, it added.
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A convoy of tractors that set out from kibbutzim across Israel arrived at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling for the return of hostages held in Gaza. The protest was organised by the Kibbutz Movement and the Hostages Families Forum.
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Israeli airstrikes have struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have said, and reportedly one civilian has been killed, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month. “A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
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Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday and called on Tehran to urgently change course and comply with the agency’s investigation. The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was seen by the Associated Press (AP), says that as of 17 May, Iran had amassed 408.6kg of uranium enriched up to 60%.
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Israel said Saturday’s IAEA report was a clear warning sign that Iran is “totally determined to complete its nuclear weapons programme”,according to a statement from the office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The White House denounced Hamas’s response on Saturday to a new American cease-fire proposal as totally unacceptable and said it “only takes us backward” after the group sought firmer guarantees that the deal would lead to a permanent end to the war.
Under the U.S. proposal, which was floated by Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Mideast envoy, Israel and Hamas would halt the fighting in Gaza for at least 60 days, during which some hostages would be freed in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel. And there would be further U.S.-backed negotiations on a permanent end to the war.
That issue has long been the core sticking point in the truce negotiations. Hamas has been willing to free the remaining Israeli and foreign captives in Gaza as part of a broader deal to end the war. Israel has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas lays down its arms and sends it leaders into exile.
Mr. Witkoff laid the blame on Hamas for the impasse, saying in a statement that its response “only takes us backward.” He said Hamas should accept the U.S. framework as the basis for further intensive negotiations, “which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
A Hamas official outside of Gaza had said earlier on Saturday that the group was seeking amendments to the Witkoff proposal around the guarantees for ending the war decisively….
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