Benjamin Netanyahu tells families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted new ceasefire proposal, reports Israeli media
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted a new ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Israeli media reported on Thursday.
Palestinian militant group Hamas said earlier that it had received the new proposal from mediators and was studying it.
Key events
The day so far
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Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted a new ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Israeli media reported on Thursday. Palestinian militant group Hamas said earlier that it had received the new proposal from mediators and was studying it.
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Hamas says it has received US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s new proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza from mediators. The statement from the militant group says the proposal is now being studied.
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Israel has authorised 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, its defence minister has said.
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Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called Israel’s decision a “dangerous escalation”, accusing the government of continuing to drag the region into a “cycle of violence and instability”.
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An Israeli strike hit the south of Lebanon, killing one man on Thursday. Israel says its attack, which violated a ceasefire agreement, struck a member of the Hezbollah militant group. Lebanon’s health ministry says an “Israeli enemy strike” hit a forested area in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa, killing one man.
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The United States’ new envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, called for a non-aggression agreement between Syria and Israel in remarks to Saudi channel Al Arabiya on Thursday.
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Israel has ordered the evacuation of the Al Awda hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the strip’s health ministry says. The ministry urged the international community to protect Gaza’s health system and uphold international humanitarian law.
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At least 64 people have been killed since the early hours of this morning by Israeli attacks on Gaza, the Strip’s health ministry says. This means the death toll in Gaza has reached 54,249, the majority of whom were women and children, since the war began in 2023.
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has strongly criticised Israel on Thursday, condemning its attacks on the Gaza Strip as “collective punishment of the civilian population.”
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation through an area known as the Netzarim Corridor, central Gaza Strip.
Benjamin Netanyahu tells families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted new ceasefire proposal, reports Israeli media
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel has accepted a new ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Israeli media reported on Thursday.
Palestinian militant group Hamas said earlier that it had received the new proposal from mediators and was studying it.
Hamas says it has latest US proposal for ceasefire
Hamas says it has received US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s new proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza from mediators.
The statement from the militant group says the proposal is now being studied.
“The Hamas leadership has received Witkoff’s new proposal from the mediators,” the statement says.
“It is responsibly studying it in a way that serves the interests of our people, provides relief, and achieves a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
The proposal stipulates the release of 10 living hostages held in Gaza and the return of the bodies of 18 deceased captives, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire.
The proposal includes the United Nations resuming the provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The text of the agreement will not contain an Israeli promise to end the war.
Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon
An Israeli strike hit the south of Lebanon, killing one man on Thursday. Israel says its attack, which violated a ceasefire agreement, struck a member of the Hezbollah militant group.
Lebanon’s health ministry says an “Israeli enemy strike” hit a forested area in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa, killing one man.
The Israeli army says the man was “a Hezbollah terrorist” operating in southern Lebanon, alleging he was working to restore a site used to manage the group’s “fire and defence array”.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the man was a “municipal employee” tasked with rehabilitating wells when his motorcycle was struck.
Israel has continued to ignore a ceasefire deal struck in November with a flurry of attacks.
Under the deal, only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army are meant to operate in the south.
Lebanon has urged nations around the world to pressure Israel into halting further attacks and withdrawing its military from the region, which still occupies five areas it deems strategic.
The United States’ new envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, called for a non-aggression agreement between Syria and Israel in remarks to Saudi channel Al Arabiya on Thursday.
Syria and Israel have been at war for the better part of a century. Since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2023, tensions reignited, and Israel has perpetrated hundreds of military attacks against its long-time enemy.
Despite the ongoing fighting, Barrack said the conflict between the two countries was a “solvable problem”.
He thinks that Syria and Israel could “start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders” to create a new relationship.
While touring the Gulf earlier in May, US President Donald Trump eased sanctions on Syria, saying he hoped the country would normalise relations with Israel.
“I told him, I hope you’re going to join once you’re straightened out, and he said yes. But they have a lot of work to do,” he said of Sharaa.
He also called Sharaa a “young, attractive guy” with a “very strong past”.
The Israeli backed logistics group, Gaza Humanitarian Foundations, opened a third aid distribution site in the Palestinian enclave on Thursday, claiming that since beginning operations on Monday, it has handed out about 1,838,182 meals.
“Operations will continue scaling across all four sites, with plans to build additional sites across Gaza, including in the northern region, in the weeks ahead,” the foundation said in a statement via the Reuters news agency.
The foundation has been criticised for overseeing a chaotic distribution process compared to United Nations-backed initiatives in the past.
Israel has ordered the evacuation of the Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza, the strip’s health ministry says.
The ministry urged the international community to protect Gaza’s health system and uphold international humanitarian law.
The evacuation order follows several explosions reportedly occurring at a food distribution area in the south.
UK’s Middle East minister condemns Israel’s West Bank settlements plan
Hamish Falconer, the UK’s minister for the Middle East has criticised the Israeli government’s decision to approve 22 new settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Falconer posted on X that the plans were a “deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood”.
“The UK condemns these actions,” he said.
“Settlements are illegal under international law, further imperil the two-state solution, and do not protect Israel.”
Faisal Ali
Low-resolution satellite imagery has revealed the extent of Rafah’s destruction. Two of the images date from December 2023 and 2024. In 2023, the southern Gaza governorate appears green, with its buildings intact. By the same time the following year, the visible ashen-grey colour indicates buildings that have been flattened or damaged.
Significant parts of Rafah were already showing signs of structural damage in satellite imagery prior to Israel’s major offensive in 2024. By the end of October 2023, approximately 4.2% to 5.2% of buildings in Rafah had sustained damage. Bellingcat analysis found that, of around 670 buildings in Rafah’s eastern Tal al-Sultan area, only 224 remained standing.
Israel launched a major offensive in May 2024 despite widespread international opposition. By that point, Rafah was hosting half of Gaza’s population, which had been pushed south.
The scale of damage to the Rafah governorate escalated significantly. According to satellite data from the United Nations (UNOSAT), the area recorded the “highest number of newly damaged structures” since July, at 3,289. By September 2024, an estimated 16,526 buildings had been damaged in Rafah, and 23,467 across the entire governorate.
In April, Gaza’s media office reported that approximately 90% of Rafah’s buildings had been destroyed, adding that around 12,000 square metres had been razed by the Israeli military. By April 2025, satellite images show Rafah appearing in an entirely different colour.
Here we’ve zoomed in and used higher-resolution imagery of central Rafah City in November 2023 and October 2025.
At least 64 people have been killed since the early hours of this morning by Israeli attacks on Gaza, the Strip’s health ministry says.
This means the death toll in Gaza has reached 54,249, the majority of whom were women and children, since the war began in 2023.
Criminals looting aid intended for Gaza are doing so with “active or passive” Israeli military protection, Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has told Sky News.
Shehada says looting gangs are operating openly in IDF controlled areas, saying the activity occurs in front of Israeli tanks and military vehicles.
“The criminals and drug dealers that are looting the vast majority of aid are operating with either active or passive IDF protection,” he says.
He adds that Israel allows in 20% of what Gazans need to subsist on a day-to-day basis in an “engineered policy of starvation.”
“Israel is using the ‘Hamas looting’ talking point as merely a pretext to externalise blame for its deliberate starvation policy in Gaza.”
