By MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials and witnesses said, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will “allow” Palestinians to leave during an upcoming military offensive in some of the territory’s most populated areas.
Netanyahu wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people through what he refers to as “voluntary migration” — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing.
“Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the Strip if they want,” Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with i24, an Israeli TV station, to discuss the planned offensive in areas including Gaza City where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter. “We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.”
Witnesses and staff at Nasser and Awda hospitals, which received the bodies, said people were shot dead on their way to aid distribution sites and while awaiting convoys entering Gaza. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ceasefire talks set to resume
Efforts to revive ceasefire talks have resumed after apparently breaking down last month. Hamas and Egyptian officials met Wednesday in Cairo, according to Hamas official Taher al-Nounou.
Israel has no plans to send its negotiating team to talks in Cairo, the prime minister’s office said.
Israel’s plans to widen its military offensive against Hamas to the areas of Gaza that it does not yet control have sparked condemnation and criticism at home and abroad, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 of them are alive. Families fear a new offensive endangers them.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Netanyahu was asked by i24 News if the window had closed on a partial ceasefire deal and he responded that he wanted all of the hostages back, alive and dead.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty told reporters that Cairo is still trying to advance an earlier proposal for an initial 60-day ceasefire, the release of some hostages and an influx of humanitarian aid before further talks on a lasting truce.
Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The militant group has refused to lay down its arms.
South Sudan calls reports of resettlement talks baseless
Israel and South Sudan are in talks about relocating Palestinians to the war-torn East African nation, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The office of Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sharren Haskel, said Wednesday she was arriving in South Sudan for a series of meetings in the first visit by a senior government official to the country, but she did not plan to broach the subject of moving Palestinians.
South Sudan’s ministry of foreign affairs in a statement called reports that it was engaging in discussions with Israel about resettling Palestinians baseless.
The AP previously reported that U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for moving Palestinians uprooted from Gaza.
Killed while seeking aid
Among those killed while seeking aid were 14 Palestinians in the Teina area approximately 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from a food distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to staff at Nasser hospital.
Hashim Shamalah said Israeli troops fired toward them as people tried to get through. Many were shot and fell while fleeing, he said.
Israeli gunfire killed five other Palestinians while trying to reach another GHF distribution site in the Netzarim corridor area, according to Awda hospital and witnesses.
GHF said there were no incidents at or near its sites Wednesday.
The U.S. and Israel support GHF, an American contractor, as an alternative to the United Nations, which they claim allows Hamas to siphon off aid. The U.N., which has delivered aid throughout Gaza for decades when conditions allow, denies the allegations.
Aid convoys from other groups travel within 100 meters (328 feet) of GHF sites and draw crowds attempting to loot them. An overwhelming majority of violent incidents over the past few weeks have been related to those convoys, the GHF said.
Israeli fire killed at least six other people waiting for aid trucks close to the Morag corridor, which separates parts of southern Gaza, Nasser hospital said.
UN says starvation at highest levels of the war
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Tuesday shared the warning from the World Food Program and said Gaza’s Health Ministry told U.N. staff that five people died over the previous 24 hours from malnutrition and starvation.
The Health Ministry says 106 children have died of malnutrition-related causes during the war and 129 adults have died since late June.
The U.N. and humanitarian partners still face significant delays and impediments from Israeli authorities who prevent the delivery of food and other essentials at the scale needed, Dujarric said.
Hamas abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the 2023 attack. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has since displaced most of Gaza’s population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The offensive has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
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