Israel this week unveiled what it said was a new US-backed ceasefire plan, different from the one it agreed to in January, and is trying to force Hamas to accept it by imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the plan a “Witkoff proposal,” saying it came from US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. However, the White House has yet to confirm the information, saying only that it supports any Israeli action.
Netanyahu’s remarks came a day after the first phase of the agreed ceasefire ended, but there is still no clarity on what comes next as the second phase of the agreement has yet to be worked out.
Under the new plan, Hamas must release half of the remaining hostages – the Palestinian group’s main bargaining chip – in exchange for an extension of the ceasefire and a promise to negotiate a long-term truce. Israel did not mention the release of Palestinian prisoners, a key component of the first phase.
Hamas accused Israel of trying to sabotage an existing agreement that called for both sides to negotiate the return of the remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a prolonged cease-fire. But no substantive talks were ever held.
On Sunday, Israel suspended all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s population of about 2 million people and promised “additional consequences” if Hamas did not accept the new offer.
Arab leaders, meanwhile, are finalising a separate plan for post-war Gaza to counter Trump’s proposal to relocate its population to turn it into a tourist centre.
Israeli army kills Palestinian in Jenin amid ongoing offensive in northern West Bank
The Israeli army on Tuesday killed a Palestinian youth in Jenin amid an ongoing offensive in the northern occupied West Bank since January 21.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that the Israeli army handed over to medical teams “a martyr in his twenties in the eastern neighbourhood of Jenin.” Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that a large number of Israeli troops accompanied by bulldozers stormed the eastern Jenin neighbourhood at dawn on Tuesday.
The eyewitnesses said armed clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants and the sounds of explosions started in the neighbourhood. They added that Israeli bulldozers began destroying infrastructure in the area, including levelling roads.
The Israeli army has been conducting operations in the northern West Bank since January 21, killing at least 65 people and displacing thousands.
Palestinian authorities have warned that the ongoing military offensive is part of a wider plan by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank and declare sovereignty over it, which could officially mark the end of the two-state solution.
The raids were the latest in a military escalation in the West Bank, where at least 928 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 wounded by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the offensive on the Gaza Strip began on October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Last July, the UN International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
