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October 7, 2023: Israel begins bombarding Gaza in retaliation to Hamas attacks
Israel resumes massive attacks on March 18, killing over 400 in a day — two months after ceasefire ending 15 months of relentless attacks began
Future governance of Gaza remains unclear as Trump suggests US takeover but Arab countries propose alternative plan, which UK, others back
Hamas and Israel exchange 25 hostages, bodies and 1,700 detainees in seven swaps
Over 50,000 Palestinians, 400 Israeli soldiers dead; nearly all of Gaza displaced
Multi-billion dollar challenges ahead to reconstruct decimated enclave
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” at Sunday’s strike by Israeli forces on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, his spokesperson said, Reuters reports.
“Under international humanitarian law, wounded and sick, medical personnel and medical facilities, including hospitals, must be respected and protected,” the UN chief’s spokesperson said.
He said the attack dealt “a severe blow to an already devastated healthcare system in the Strip”, adding there was strong concern that medical supplies are running low as well as food and water .
A senior Hamas official has said the group expects to respond within 48 hours to an Israeli ceasefire proposal it received through mediators, AFP reports.
“Hamas will most likely send its response to the mediators within the next 48 hours, as the movement is still conducting in-depth consultations,” the official told AFP.
The official said the offer includes a truce of at least 45 days in return for the release of 10 living hostages held in Gaza.
It also provides for the release of 1,231 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory, which has been under complete blockade since March 2.
The proposal calls for a “permanent end to the war” on the condition Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas, disarm, the official said.
Hamas has rejected the disarmament demand as a “red line” and “non-negotiable”.
Israel has yet to comment on the proposal’s contents.
The Maldives has announced it was banning the entry of Israelis from the luxury tourist archipelago in “resolute solidarity” with the Palestinian people.
President Mohamed Muizzu ratified the legislation shortly after it was approved by parliament.
“The ratification reflects the government’s firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people,” his office said in a statement.
“The Maldives reaffirms its resolute solidarity with the Palestinian cause.” The ban will be implemented with immediate effect, a spokesman for Muizzu’s office told AFP.
At least one person has been killed and nine others wounded in an Israeli air strike that hit the northern gate of the Kuwaiti Field Hospital in al-Mawasi area near southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city, according to a spokesman for the hospital, Al Jazeera reports.
The killed man was a medic and other casualties were all patients and medics, spokesman Saber Mohammed added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
According to Israeli media, about 350 writers, poets and editors have signed a letter calling on the Israeli leadership to end the onslaught in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.
The signatories accuse the prime minister of extending the conflict for a personal political calculus as the “war’s end would mean the end of his rule – and his freedom as a criminal defendant”, reads an extract of the letter reported by the Times of Israel newspaper.
“For the sake of his liberty, fearful of incarceration for his pending indictments, the prime minister continues to rob the hostages of their freedom, endanger IDF soldiers, and inflict disproportionate harm on Gaza’s civilian population — all while escalating a constitutional coup within Israel,” it added.
At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and 69 wounded in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry, Al Jazeera reports.
“A number of victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, unable to be reached by ambulances and Civil Defence crews,” the statement published on Telegram said.
The latest figures bring the toll since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18 to 1,630 killed and 4,302 wounded, the ministry said.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 51,000 Palestinians and injured 116,343, it added.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) points out that Palestinian mother Hanadi is just one of “hundreds of thousands in Gaza struggling to survive” as Israeli weeks of siege have blocked all aid supplies — food, medicine, clean water, fuel — from entering the conflict-torn territory, the organisation said in a post on X.
“I never expected I would go back to using it,” says Palestinian mother Hanadi in a video in the post, as she sorts through hard, stale pieces of mould-infested bread at her tent shelter in Gaza.
“But here we are eating it,” she said, in a video interview with the UN children’s agency, Unicef.
“I try to salvage some of it, the pieces with only a little mould. I remove the mould and dip it in tea to feed my children,” Hanadi said.
“I have no choice,” she said.
Pakistan has strongly condemned the bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza by Israeli occupation forces, calling it a part of a pattern of targeting medical facilities in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, APP reports.
Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan, in a statement, said that the attack took place on Palm Sunday, a sacred occasion for Christians, which underscored Israel’s blatant disregard for religious sanctity and civilian lives.
“Pakistan demands an immediate end to Israel’s ongoing atrocities, which have resulted in the indiscriminate killing of innocent and unarmed Palestinians, including women and children, and the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure,” the spokesperson said.
He said that the Israels relentless assaults had crippled Gazas healthcare system, depriving critically ill patients of vital medical care. Coupled with the blockade on humanitarian aid, these actions reflect a deliberate strategy to prolong suffering and entrench conflict.
The Israeli military has claimed that it killed a Hamas fighter who participated in the release ceremony from Gaza of three Israeli captives in February.
The military said it cooperated with the Shin Bet intelligence service to target Hamza Wael Muhammad Asfa, of the Deir el-Balah battalion’s elite Nukhba forces in central Gaza, saying he was killed about two weeks ago.
“As part of his role in the organisation, the terrorist took part in the cynical release ceremony of returning civilians Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben-Ami, and Or Levy,” the military said.
Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has expressed concerns about the consequences of “unexpected visa revocations”, Al Jazeera reports.
In a letter to the MIT community, Kornbluth said nine MIT students, recent graduates and postdoctorates have had their “visas and immigration status unexpectedly revoked” since April 4. She said the revocations were causing alarm at the “possibility of future actions”.
She also warned that the uncertainty could “make it less likely that top talent from around the world will come to the US” and “damage American competitiveness and scientific leadership for years to come”.
More Israeli soldiers have signed a letter calling for an end to their state’s offensive in Gaza and immediate negotiations to return Israeli captives from the territory, Al Jazeera reports.
Israeli Army Radio reports that a group of 150 Golani Brigade members have joined the call to end the military campaign, adding their names to thousands of others in a sign of dissent that has alarmed the Israeli government.
Several petitions have been circulating within the Israeli military since last week.
The first was signed by 1,000 Israeli Air Force reserves and was followed by others circulated among veterans and officers serving within the armoured corps, navy and other military units. A separate petition was signed by 200 Israeli military doctors on Sunday, the report added.
Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq has said Israel’s recent attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital was part of a “pattern of genocidal attacks on health facilities, vehicles, equipment and staff”, Al Jazeera reports.
“This latest attack on a medical facility follows the demolition of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the last cancer treatment centre in Gaza, on 20 March 2025,” Al-Haq said in a post on X.
“Less than half of Gaza’s hospitals are still partially functional, struggling to deliver care in damaged buildings and facing severe shortages of medical supplies due to Israel’s total blockade,” Al-Haq added.
“Not only is there no safe place in Gaza, but Israel… has also eliminated the means of survival for Palestinians facing daily aerial bombardment, ground attacks, starvation, disease, and exhaustion,” it added.
A US judge in Vermont has ordered the Trump administration not to deport a Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested upon arriving for an interview for his US citizenship petition, Reuters reports.
District Judge William Sessions ordered US President Donald Trump and other senior officials not to remove Mohsen Mahdawi from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for information.
Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was a Columbia University student who plans to return for a master’s degree in the fall of 2025, according to the request from his lawyers to keep him in Vermont.
“The government has made clear that it intends to retaliate and punish individuals such as Mr Mahdawi who advocated for ceasefire and ending the bloodshed in Gaza,” his lawyers said in a court filing.
Mediators Egypt and Qatar have presented a new Israeli proposal for a Gaza ceasefire to Hamas, Reuters says, citing Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV, but a senior Hamas official said at least two elements of the proposal were nonstarters.
Citing sources, Al Qahera said mediators awaited Hamas’s response.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the proposal did not meet the Palestinian group’s demand that Israel commit to a complete halt of hostilities.
In the proposal, Israel also for the first time called for the disarmament of Hamas in the next phase of negotiations, which the group will not agree to, Abu Zuhri said.
“Handing over the resistance’s weapons is a million red lines and is not subject to consideration, let alone discussion”, Abu Zuhri said.
Israel did not immediately comment on the reported proposal.
Read more here.
Hamas has said it is studying the proposal it received from mediators for a ceasefire in Gaza, adding it will submit its response “as soon as possible”, Reuters reports.
Egypt earlier received an Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in the enclave, the state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV cited sources as saying yesterday, after talks ended in Cairo without a breakthrough.
An unnamed senior official told Al Jazeera that Hamas had received a new ceasefire proposal from Egypt — but that the Egyptian side emphasised that no deal could be reached with Israel unless the Palestinian group laid down its arms.
“Our negotiating delegation was surprised that the proposal Egypt conveyed included an explicit text regarding the disarmament of the resistance,” the official said. “Egypt informed us that there will be no agreement to stop the war without negotiating the disarmament of the resistance.”
According to the official, Hamas stuck to its position that any agreement should be centred on an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and its withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave. The official added that Hamas’s weapons were “not subject to discussion”.
Israel has repeatedly insisted that Hamas must be defeated — including being disarmed — for the conflict to end.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reports that nine Palestinian prisoners released earlier today and brought to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza had been arrested at a checkpoint six months ago when the Israeli forces besieged the Jabalia refugee camp.
“We’ve seen them and we could see that they had signs of torture on their bodies,” she reports. “Doctors said they were deprived of food and basic necessities. Their families were also unaware of where they were being held.”
Khoudary reports that there are hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails and relatives who do not know where they are have been calling the ICRC for information on their whereabouts.
“Meanwhile, Israeli attacks continue across Gaza. There have been at least two airstrikes since the morning,” she adds. “One took place in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, where six Palestinians were killed, and another one in Khuza’a in Khan Younis, where five Palestinians were killed.”
The United Nations said Gaza was facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since fighting began, with no aid entering the territory for weeks and conditions rapidly deteriorating, AFP reports.
“The humanitarian situation is now likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities,” said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In a statement, OCHA said no supplies had reached Gaza for a month-and-a-half, since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire and began blocking their delivery.
Israel has the right to defend itself, but its current actions go beyond proportionate self-defence, Al Jazeera reports quoting the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas.
The comments follow the EU announcement that it will increase its financial support for the Palestinian Authority with a three-year package worth about €1.6 billion ($1.8bn).
Egypt and Qatar emphasised their support for the Palestinian people in a joint statement after Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha, Al Jazeera reports.
“The two sides have expressed their grave concern over the continued escalation in the Gaza Strip and stressed the importance of continuing joint efforts to achieve an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, ensure the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid to civilians, and support reconstruction efforts to alleviate the suffering of the brotherly Palestinian people,” the joint statement said.
It added that the leaders emphasised the “centrality of the Palestinian cause for Arabs”.
The statement also backed efforts to “achieve Palestinian national reconciliation and the need to unify Palestinian ranks”, and affirmed support “for the Gaza reconstruction plan” proposed by Egypt and backed by the Arab League.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has called for “reform” of the Palestinian Authority as part of a plan that would see the West Bank-based body govern a post-conflict Gaza without Hamas, AFP reports.
“It is essential to set a framework for the day after: disarm and sideline Hamas, define credible governance and reform the Palestinian Authority,” Macron said on X following a phone call with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmud Abbas.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and French President Emmanuel Macron called for an “urgent” ceasefire in Gaza during a phone conversation, AFP reports citing official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
“They emphasised the urgent need for a ceasefire, the acceleration of humanitarian aid delivery, the rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land and the Palestinian Authority assuming responsibility in the Gaza Strip,” the agency reported.
The National Assembly has passed a resolution condemning the latest round of atrocities in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military.
The resolution was moved by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar and unanimously passed by the gathered lawmakers.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources have said that the latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the defunct Gaza ceasefire and free Israeli hostages has ended with no apparent breakthrough, Reuters reports.
The sources said Hamas had stuck to its position that any agreement must lead to an end to the fighting in Gaza.
Israel has said it will not end the fighting until Hamas is stamped out. The group has ruled out any proposal that it lay down its arms.
But despite that fundamental disagreement, the sources said a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya had shown some flexibility over how many hostages it could free in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel should a truce be extended.
An Egyptian source told Reuters that the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages.
Read more here.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 38 people were killed in the past 24 hours and one person was rescued from under the rubble, Al Jazeera reports.
This brings the death toll of Israeli attacks since the start of the conflict to 50,983 killed and 116,274 wounded.
Since March 18, when Israel ended the ceasefire by launching more attacks, at least 1,613 Palestinians have been killed and 4,233 wounded.
A large number of victims are still believed to be trapped under the rubble or otherwise missing and unreachable.
