This is the US ceasefire proposal that Israel has accepted, according to the White House.

BarcelonaThe White House reported Thursday that Israel has accepted the latest ceasefire proposal made by US special envoy Steve Witkoff. Hours earlier, Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had informed the families of the hostages. US press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Tel Aviv has "signed" the proposal, but that the Islamist group has yet to respond.

Hamas has said it has received the proposal and will review it "in accordance with the interests" of the Palestinians. The BBC reported this Friday morning that Hamas will reject the proposal, a representative for the organization told the British outlet. Another spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the group is still studying the proposal, but that the new text "means continuing the killings of civilians," according to a spokesperson for the group told Al Jazeera. Everything seems to indicate that the new proposal has eliminated the withdrawal point for Israeli troops in Gaza. Sources consulted by the BBC said the new plan falls short of crucial demands such as an end to the war.

The few details of the Witkoff plan leaked to Reuters are that it includes a 60-day ceasefire, the release of 28 of the 58 living and dead Israeli hostages in the first week, in exchange for the release of 10 of the 58 dead Palestinians and two of the 8 dead. The text seen by Reuters, which says the plan is guaranteed by US President Donald Trump and mediators from Egypt and Qatar, includes the dispatch of humanitarian aid to Gaza as soon as Hamas signs the ceasefire agreement. The aid would be delivered through the UN, the Red Crescent, and other agreed channels.

Meanwhile, Israel continues its indiscriminate bombing, which killed 70 Palestinians on Thursday, and only allows aid into Gaza in dribs and drabs, using a distribution system that turns food into a weapon of war.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing a source familiar with the new proposal from Trump's special envoy, does not include a definitive ceasefire or the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the areas they occupy in the Strip. However, they also admit that the wording is sufficiently ambiguous for Hamas to interpret it as a lasting truce. Netanyahu's office has also denied reports from Channel 12, a network close to the army, that Israel will withdraw from the territory it has occupied in the north of the Strip.

The Israeli prime minister also denied that he is willing to abandon his plan to control humanitarian aid, which began this week with more than 10 Palestinians killed while trying to collect aid in humiliating camps where thousands of people who have been suffering for weeks under siege by hunger have had to endure. The leaks of the Witkoff plan point to an equally ambiguous formulation that speaks of cooperation with the UN, which has flatly rejected the system devised by Israel and the United States.

Ten deaths at aid distribution points

Since aid distributions to civilians in the Gaza Strip began on Tuesday, at least ten Palestinians seeking food to feed their families have been killed by the Israeli army, according to the Hamas government in the Strip. This is the assessment of the first few days of operation. of the distribution system with mercenary companies organized by the United States and Israel as an alternative to the UN and the humanitarian system that has operated in Palestine for the past 80 years. The new mechanism has been rejected by all international humanitarian aid agencies and organizations, including the UN, for failing to meet the minimum requirements for protecting the population or for international law.

Gaza authorities accuse Israeli forces of "opening direct fire on starving Palestinian civilians gathered to collect aid at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) Rafah collection point, in an attack that left at least 62 people injured. In addition to the casualties, the deaths did not occur on the same day. several incidents. On Wednesday, images of thousands of Palestinians rushing to get the aid saw them, many of whom were held in a closed area waiting in line for hours in the hot sun surrounded by armed men while they were photographed.

At one point, Palestinians broke through the fences to get the aid.

Israel's Army Radio announced Thursday that a third aid distribution point will be opened in the Netzarim corridor, which the Israeli army opened at the start of its offensive to cut the Strip in two. The agency claims the center will provide humanitarian aid to 300,000 Palestinians per week. It also clarified that the center's location is designed to push people from northern and central Gaza south, although such a forced displacement of civilians is considered a war crime. The military radio station asserts that these aid distribution points aim to "break the barrier of fear" and that they are identifying "the beginning of Hamas's loss of control over the population."

The UN and all non-governmental organizations specializing in humanitarian aid have condemned the US and Israeli plan and have insisted that they have their own plan to assist the population of Gaza if Israel does not stop preventing it, something that has led to its leaders being prosecuted as criminals. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has described the new GHF facilities as a model for "distracting from the atrocities" and has demanded that Israel allow the humanitarian system to "do its work of saving lives."

But the desperation of the population is such, with unprecedented levels of hunger accredited by all independent international organizations present in Gaza, that chaos is inevitable even at the usual aid distribution points. At least four Palestinians died Tuesday night in Deir al-Balah, in a UN Food Program warehouse, when a massive attack took place. Two people were crushed by the crowd and two others were killed by gunshot wounds; it is unclear whether they were fired by Israelis, private contractors, or mobsters. On March 2, Israel closed the entry of food, medicine, fuel, water, and all forms of aid to the population of Gaza. Last week, it began allowing trucks to pass through, but only in dribs and drabs. A situation that, according to doctors and international organizations, has pushed the population to the limit.

Algeria, France, and the United Kingdom, at a UN Security Council meeting, also demanded that Israel open the crossings after 80 days of almost total blockade. On the Egyptian side of the Rafah border, the UN has thousands of trucks loaded with aid ready to enter Gaza. At the same meeting, Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riad Mansour accused Israel of using aid as a "weapon of war" and began to cry when he recalled "the mothers who apologize to their starving children and can only stroke their hair."

More settlements in the West Bank

Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced this Thursday the decision to build 22 new Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in direct violation of international law and the largest settlement expansion since the Oslo 9 Accords. Netanyahu's Likud party called it a "historic decision that will change the face of the region." These nine new settlements, while the rest are outposts previously built by settlers and now legalized under Israeli law, but not international law. Hamas condemned the move, and the United Kingdom called it a "deliberate obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state."