Israel issued a “last opportunity” warning for Gazans to flee the besieged territory’s main city, warning that its forces had tightened their encirclement.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force,” Israeli defence minister Israel Katz posted on X.
Meanwhile, Hamas appeared inclined to accept a ceasefire plan laid out by Donald Trump under certain conditions, sources close to Israel-Hamas negotiations in Qatar told Haaretz.
Hamas is currently consulting with other Palestinian groups to come to a unified position on the plan.
A Palestinian source close to the Hamas leadership told AFP that the group wanted to amend certain clauses in the plan, including on disarmament and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
Trump‘s 20-point plan would see Hamas relinquish political and military leadership in Gaza and lay down its arms, and appoint the US president as the chair of a “board of peace” to oversee governance, led by a committee that could include former British prime minister Tony Blair.
Israel tells Gazans ‘last opportunity’ to flee main city
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz issued a “last opportunity” warning for Gazans to flee the besieged territory’s main city and move south, warning that his forces had tightened their encirclement around Gaza City.
“The IDF has completed in recent hours the capture of the Netzarim axis up to the Gaza coast, effectively dividing Gaza between north and south,” Katz wrote on X.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force.”
The minister warned those who remained in Gaza would be “considered terrorists and terror supporters”.
Hamas said Katz’s comments were likely “a prelude to the escalation of war crimes being committed by his army”.
Israel kills Palestinian photojournalist known for newborn baby portraits
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed Palestinian journalist Yahia Barzaq, who was known for his portraits of newborn babies before Israel’s Gaza invasion, the Turkey government said in a statement.
“The freelance journalist Yahia Barzaq, who had been covering Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza for TRT, was martyred amid an airstrike by the perpetrators of genocide,” the government’s department of communications said, adding that Israel was committing war crimes “every single day”.
“The Israeli administration should know that with their systematic attacks on journalists, they cannot silence the truth; they will never be able to hide their crimes against humanity and acts of genocide,” it said.
American medics who served in Gaza urge Trump to cut ties with Israel
More than 150 health care workers, including doctors, nurses and surgeons, who volunteered in Gaza have asked US president Donald Trump to end America’s military, economic and diplomatic support for the “ongoing destruction of Gaza”.
“We are among the very few neutral American observers that Israel has permitted to enter Gaza for nearly two years,” the group, which includes surgeon Feroze Sidhwa from the California Northstate University College of Medicine, wrote in an open letter to Trump.
The health care workers warned that children in Gaza were facing “every possible type of injury”, including dismemberment, gunshots to the head and chest, and evisceration.
“Most of us saw pre-teen children shot in the head or chest on a regular basis, often multiple times per day,” the group wrote.
“We beg you to hear the cries of Gaza’s children that our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why our government continues arming Israel while its armed forces kill children en masse.”
The group urged Trump to immediately end “US military, economic, and diplomatic support for the ongoing destruction of Gaza, and support an international arms embargo on all warring parties”.
“These policies should remain in place until a permanent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is negotiated and implemented between the two parties,” they wrote.
Israeli forces kill at least 73 more Palestinians since dawn
At least 73 Gaza residents have been killed by Israeli strikes since dawn, with most victims in Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported, citing medical sources.
Israel’s missile bombardment included two that struck a school in the city, which had been converted to a shelter.
The missile strike reportedly killed dozens of Palestinians.
Another strike killed six more civilians, officials said.
An attack on a building in the Daraj neighbourhood killed seven, according to Al Jazeera.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz issued a “last opportunity” warning for Gazans to flee Gaza City in a post on X.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force,” Katz said.
Colombia revokes free trade agreement with Israel
Colombian president Gustavo Petro has announced on X the immediate revocation of the country’s free trade agreement with Israel and the expulsion of the Israeli diplomatic delegation in Colombia.
Petro’s announcement comes after the Israeli navy intercepted the Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla boats carrying aid to Gaza, which reportedly also had two Colombian activists onboard.
“If this information is true, there is a new international crime by Netanyahu,” he wrote in his post, referring to a press release from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
“Hitler is alive in world politics; Arendt was right,” he wrote, referring to political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt.
Palestinian rights group condemns Trump’s ‘ultimatum’ over Gaza plan
A Palestinian rights group has condemned Donald Trump’s “ultimatum” Gaza plan, calling it a “grave violation of international law and an outright assault on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people”.
The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) said the plan “entrenched and normalised” Israel’s activity in the region.
“While PHROC welcomes all genuine efforts to end the genocide in Gaza, the US plan does not aim to end the Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation but rather to entrench and normalize it,” it wrote in a statement.
“By rewarding Israel’s systematic crimes of apartheid, persecution, and genocide, the plan denies Palestinians their most fundamental rights.
“It mirrors the failures of the international community, in ignoring the root causes i.e., the imposition of Israel’s expansionist settler colonial apartheid regime, in breach of the collective Palestinian rights to self-determination and return.”
Bel Trew | There is one crucial flaw in Trump’s peace plan for Gaza
A plan is underway for “eternal peace in the Middle East” with officials “very, very close” to a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a beaming Donald Trump declared during a White House press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
The reason? His new “extremely fair” 20-point peace proposal.
A plan so great, he claimed, that European leaders have been on the phone heralding it as “the most incredible thing we’ve heard”.
“Some think it’s the biggest thing they’ve ever heard. They called just to find out: was it just a rumour or is it actually done?” he added.
Certainly the leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt released a joint statement immediately afterwards “welcoming” Trump’s “sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza”.
Bel Trew writes:
Germany arrests three men suspected of targeting Jewish institutions for Hamas
German police arrested three men they suspect of preparing a serious act of violence against Jewish targets in Germany for Hamas, prosecutors said on Wednesday, a week before the second anniversary of the militant Islamist group’s attack on Israel.
Prosecutors suspect the three men of being foreign operatives for Hamas and of being involved in procuring firearms and ammunition to be used for assassinations targeting Israeli or Jewish institutions in Germany, they said.
Hamas on Wednesday denied links to the three men, calling the allegations unfounded and saying its struggle is “confined to opposing Israeli occupation in Palestine.”
Gaza aid flotilla says Israel issued radio threats
Don’t be fooled – Trump’s Gaza peace plan is a colonial con-trick on the Palestinians
Donald Trump’s plans for Gaza are doomed and mad. Don’t be conned by what appears to be widespread support for it, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley
