Hamas official says that Gaza mediators intensified the ceasefire efforts

A senior Hamas official told the BBC that the mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and a hostage release deal in Gaza, but the conversation with Israel has stopped.

US President Donald Trump said that “great progress” was being done as Israel and Iran ended their 12-day war on Tuesday, and his messenger Steve Witcoff thought that there was a compromise “very close” between Israel and Hamas.

The Hamas-Interested Health Ministry said that at least 45 Palestinians died in the Israeli attacks in Gaza on Wednesday, some of whom were seeking help.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced that seven soldiers were killed in a bomb attack on Tuesday claimed by Hamas.

“I think Gaza is undergoing great progress, I think what we did due to this attack,” Trump told reporters at Brussels on Wednesday, referring to American air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend between Israeli and Iran.

“I think we are going to get some very good news. I was talking to Steve Vitcofoff … [and] He told me that Gaza is very close. ,

Shortly after Trump’s spoke, a senior Hamas official told the BBC that the mediator was “engaged in intensive contacts with the aim of reaching a ceasefire agreement”.

However, he said that the group had “no new proposal so far”.

An Israeli official also told the newspaper Hretz that there was no progress in the talks, and that the big disagreement has been unresolved.

Efforts were made by Qatar and Egypt to make a deal in late May by the US, Qatar and Egypt, when Witcoff said that Hamas demanded a “completely unacceptable” amendment for the US proposal supported by Israel for the 60 -day Trus, during which half of the living Israeli mortgages and half of those who have been killed would be released.

Israel resumed its military aggressive in Gaza on 18 March, collapsing a two -month ceasefire. It said that it wanted to pressurize Hamas to leave its hostages. Fifty are still in Gaza, of which at least 20 are considered alive.

Israel also bought a total blockade on humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza in early March, partially reduced after 11 weeks after pressure from American colleagues and warned global experts that half a million people were facing starvation.

At the same time, Israel and the United States supported the establishment of a new support distribution mechanism run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which aims to bypass the United Nations as the main supplier of aid to Palestinians. He said that the system of GHF would prevent the theft to be stolen by Hamas, which the group refuses to do.

The GHF, which uses American private security contractors, says it has distributed food packages with more than 44 million meals since starting operations on 26 May, with over 2.4 million assigned to three sites on Wednesday.

However, the United Nations and other support groups have refused to cooperate with GHF, thus violating a kind of fundamental human principles, accusing Israel’s goals of co-operating.

He has also expressed an alarm in the close-lived reports of the Palestinians killing near the group’s sites, which are inside the military areas of Israel.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, GHF has killed at least 549 people and injured 4,000, trying to collect assistance since GHF distributed assistance on 26 May.

On Wednesday morning, a spokesperson of the Hamas-Run Civil Defense Agency said that six people were killed when Israeli forces set fire to the crowd waiting for one of the GHF Food Distribution Center in the Central Gaza.

He said that three other people were killed near a GHF site in the southern city of Rafa.

However, the Israeli army stated that it “did not know about any incident with casualties in those areas”, while GHF stated that its sites had a report of any such incident.

In Gaza City, the Health Ministry said that the funeral was organized for some of the 33 people killed in the previous day waiting for assistance.

Abu Mohammed told Reuters of the news agency, “I say and repeat a million times.” “These aid points are not a support point, these are death points.”

UNICEF spokesman James Elder, who has just visited Gaza, said: “As long as a population is denied food, people are being offered this deadly option and unfortunately, because it is in a fighter area, it cannot improve.”

A civil defense spokesperson also said that one and six people, including a child, were killed at a house on Wednesday at a nuclear refugee camp in Central Gaza.

Five other people were killed when they were killed in homes in nearby city of Dear al-Balah.

More than 860 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza during the Israeli-Iran struggle, which began when Israel launched an air campaign, targeting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Iran in response launched missile barrages towards Israel.

People in Gaza were divided into their assessment what was for the ceasefire region.

Some saw the weakening of Iran, as a possible positive step towards achieving a truss in Gaza, the leading regional backer of Hamas, as it could force the group to reduce its demands.

However, other people feared that the end of the conflict would allow Israel to re -redirect their military attention to Gaza and accelerate their air and ground operations.

In Khan Younis, Nadar Ramadan, a person told the BBC that “everything went bad” in Gaza during the struggle.

, [Israeli] The bombing intensified, the damage increased, and the intrusion in some areas expanded … We only felt the destruction, “he said.

Edel Abu Redda said that the most difficult task was lack of access to assistance. He said that the items were being looted and sold for inflated prices, and citizens were coming to the fire while trying to get food.

“What should we do?” He asked. “We feel shooting and murder all the time.”

In Israel, the army announced that seven of its soldiers were killed in the war in Southern Gaza on Tuesday – the most deadly incident fell since the ceasefire.

Spokesperson Brigadier General AFI Deffreen said an explosive equipment was attached to an armored vehicle in the Khan Younis area, and that the explosion inspired the vehicle to catch the fire. He said helicopters and rescue forces made several unsuccessful efforts to save them.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was “a difficult day for the people of Israel”.

Deaths pressurized Netanyahu to agree on a ceasefire, in his glory alliance with the leader of an ultra-curry Jewish party, saying that Israel should end the war and bring all the hostages home.

“I do not understand for what purpose we are fighting … when soldiers are killed all the time?” The United Torah Judaism of Judaism told the Israeli Parliament.

The Israeli army launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and 251 others were taken hostage.

According to the health ministry of the region, at least 56,157 people have been killed in Gaza since then.

Additional Reporting by Alice Kundi in Jerusalem