40-day ceasefire offered to Hamas, says UK
- At least 27 Palestinians have been killed, including many children and women, in overnight Israeli attacks on Rafah and Gaza City.
- Egypt’s foreign minister says he is “hopeful” about a new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire as a Hamas delegation is due in Cairo for talks.
‘Outrage to the moral conscience of humanity’
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian has said that China is “deeply shocked and strongly condemns the perpetrators of this atrocity”, referring to the discovery of mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital.
At a news briefing in Beijing, he said: “Vast swaths of Gaza are now left in rubble and over a million civilians are struggling in despair on the brink of death. The fact that this is even happening in the 21st century is an outrage to the moral conscience of humanity, and tramples on the most fundamental aspect of international justice.”
The biggest imperative is to put in place a ceasefire as soon as possible, he added. “This is the number one overriding priority in Gaza.”
Hamas’s response to deal expected in coming ’24 hours or so’
It’s understood that the Israelis are asking for fewer than 40 of the 130 or so captives being held by Hamas, and in return for that, they’ll release Palestinian prisoners, and they’ll move to a second phase of a truce, which will offer this period of “sustained calm”.
The wording is very important there because we know that Hamas has been insisting that throughout previous talks, they get a complete end to hostilities and the removal of Israeli forces from Gaza so that Palestinians can return to their homes, particularly in the north.
So the question is whether this offer of a period of “sustained calm” will be enough for Hamas, considering they’ve been asking for this permanent ceasefire. We expect to hear what Hamas have to say in the coming 24 hours or so.
Palestinians in Gaza struggle with heat, garbage, insect swarms
As garbage piles up and the heat rises in the besieged Gaza Strip, flies and mosquitoes proliferate in crowded Rafah city and life becomes even more grim for displaced people living in tents, according to an AFP report.
Temperatures have already topped 30 degrees Celsius, turning makeshift shelters made from plastic tarps and sheets into sweltering ovens.
UNRWA said it has already received reports that at least two children have died due to rising temperatures.
The World Health Organization warned in January of a leap in infectious diseases such as hepatitis A, blamed on unsanitary conditions in camps.
“Waste continues piling up and running water is scarce” in Gaza, warned UNRWA in a post on X last week.
“As the weather gets warmer, the risk of disease spreading increases.”
Rafah hosts about 1.5 million displaced, according to the UN, more than half of the Gaza Strip’s population, which has been besieged and bombarded by Israel for nearly seven months.
On the streets, garbage accumulates as large rubbish containers overflow, after basic services broke down long ago amid Gaza’s worst ever war.
The war has also destroyed “waste collection vehicles, facilities and medical waste treatment centres”, leaving “municipalities scrambling to cope with the escalating crisis”, a UN report said late last month.
US ‘hoping’ a deal will bring more stability and more normalisation with Israel
The US hopes to achieve a ceasefire, which explains why Hamas has dispatched its deputy leader and a team to Cairo.
The Americans are hoping this could be conducive to something broader – more stability in the region. But also for a broader normalisation between key Arab countries and the Israelis.
It was interesting to hear [US Secretary of State] Antony Blinken saying the Israelis have offered Hamas an “extraordinarily generous” deal and that Hamas should accept the terms of that deal.
The Al Jazeera correspondent said that his sources have told him they are remaining “cautiously optimistic” about a ceasefire deal.
“[But] I have to say frustration has taken over more than a sense of optimism about a deal any time soon,” he said.
Four people killed in Israeli air strike in Rafah
At least four people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Rafah governorate in the southern Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports.
Local sources told Wafa that Israeli warplanes targeted an apartment in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, northwest of the city of Rafah, resulting in the deaths of four people, including three women.
Some EU states expected to recognise Palestinian statehood by May end: Borrell
Several European member states are expected to recognise Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh.
Malta-flagged vessel targeted near Yemen
British maritime security firm Ambrey says a Malta-flagged container ship was targeted with three missiles en route from Djibouti to the Saudi city of Jeddah.
Earlier, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it was informed by the Company Security Officer of an explosion in close proximity to a merchant vessel.
UKMTO added that the vessel and its crew were safe and authorities are investigating the incident.
In an advisory, Ambrey assessed that the vessel was targeted due to its listed operator’s ongoing trade with Israel.
Yemen’s Houthis have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping in the Red Sea region since mid-November in solidarity with Palestinians.
WATCH: Jewish student lays out why he is protesting against Gaza war
Elijah Kahlenberg, a Jewish-American student who took part in the pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas, says he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza “do constitute genocide”.
The 21-year-old told Al Jazeera: “In most Jewish education, when it comes to Palestinians, you’re not told about 1948. You’re not told about the Nakba. You’re typically told sometimes outright racist things about Arabs and Palestinians.
“I began a process of unpacking a lot of what I was told in Hebrew school, but also engaging with Palestinians and the conclusion I came to is that Palestinian culture is more similar to my culture than to any other culture in the world.”
Israel has become a ‘pariah state’, says Jordanian FM
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi reiterates that the only way to ensure security and peace is a two-state solution.
During a panel at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Safadi said the war on Gaza had turned “Israel into a pariah state”.
He added that Netanyahu must not be allowed to lead the region into “destruction” and the Israeli leader was “disrupting the horizon for peace and is leading the region into a regional war”.
“It is clear that Netanyahu does not want peace,” Safadi said.
Students set up Gaza protest encampments at Sorbonne University
Students at France’s Sorbonne University are also staging demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza, according to posts on social media.
The students chanted “Free Palestine!” at the university gates while some students set up tents in the courtyard.
Several French politicians, including Mathilde Panot who heads the left LFI group of lawmakers in the National Assembly, called supporters to join the Sorbonne protests on social media.
The protests follow last week’s student demonstrations at another Parisian institute, Sciences Po, and are the latest sign that demonstrations on US campuses are spilling over to Europe.
As Hamas goes to Egypt, where do the Gaza truce talks stand?
A senior Hamas delegation is travelling to Egypt for the latest round of negotiations aimed at pausing – if not stopping – Israel’s relentless war on Gaza, even as the prospect of a devastating ground offensive in Rafah in the enclave’s south looms.
Led by Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the delegation will hand in the group’s response to the latest Israeli proposals at talks in Cairo mediated by Qatar and the US.
Read more here to learn about the state of the talks and why they matter at a time when Israel’s war has already killed nearly 34,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
