Relatives mourn over as they carry bodies of three young Palestinian brothers, killed in an Israeli strike, ahead of their funeral outside the Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. AFP
The statement also asserted that Hamas was seeking “unacceptable” changes to the proposal.
US President Donald Trump has pushed for an agreement and will host Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to discuss a deal.
Inside Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed 14 Palestinians and another 10 were killed while seeking food aid, hospital officials in the embattled enclave told The Associated Press.
Two American aid workers with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were also injured in an attack at a food distribution site, which the organization blamed on Hamas, without providing evidence.
Weary Palestinians expressed cautious hope after Hamas gave a “positive” response late Friday to the latest US proposal for a 60-day truce, but said further talks were needed on implementation.
“We are tired. Enough starvation, enough closure of crossing points. We want to sleep in calm where we don’t hear warplanes or drones or shelling,” said Jamalat Wadi, one of Gaza's hundreds of thousands of displaced people, speaking in Deir al-Balah.
She squinted in the sun during a summer heat wave of over 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas' demand for guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war’s end, while Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting.
A Palestinian doctor, his 3 children killed
Israeli airstrikes struck tents in the crowded Muwasi area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, killing seven people, including a Palestinian doctor and his three children, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Four others were killed in the town of Bani Suheila in southern Gaza. Three people were killed in three strikes in Khan Younis.
Separately, eight Palestinians were killed near a GHF aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, the hospital said. One Palestinian was killed near another GHF point in Rafah.
GHF denied the killings happened near their sites. The organization has said no one has been shot at its sites, which are guarded by private contractors and can be accessed only by passing Israeli military positions hundreds of meters (yards) away.
Another Palestinian was killed waiting in crowds for aid trucks in eastern Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said. The United Nations and other international organizations have been procuring their supplies of aid since the war began. The incident did not appear to be connected to GHF operations.
Much of Gaza's population of over two million now relies on international aid after the war has largely devastated agriculture and other food sources and left many people near famine.
Crowds of Palestinians often wait for trucks and unload or loot their contents before they reach their destinations. The trucks must pass through areas under Israeli military control. Israel's military did not immediately comment.
American aid workers injured
The GHF said the two American aid workers were injured on Saturday morning when assailants threw grenades at a distribution site in Khan Younis. The foundation said the injuries were not life-threatening. Israel's military said it evacuated the workers for medical treatment.
The GHF — a US- and Israeli-backed initiative meant to bypass the UN — distributes aid from four sites that are surrounded by Israeli troops. Three sites are in Gaza's far south.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have rejected the GHF system, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles, and is not effective.
Israel says Hamas has siphoned off aid delivered by the UN, a claim the UN denies. Hamas has urged Palestinians not to cooperate with the GHF.
GHF, registered in Delaware, began distributing food in May to Palestinians, who say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points.
Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses. The UN human rights office says it has recorded that 613 Palestinians were killed within a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid, most of them while trying to reach GHF sites.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children.
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