AFP reports that the humanitarian aid system in Gaza is “facing total collapse” because of Israel’s blockade on aid supplies since March 2, the heads of 12 major aid organisations warned Thursday, urging Israel to let them “do our jobs”.
“Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive,” the chief executives of 12 NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, wrote in a joint statement.
“That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on March 2,” they said, adding that “This is one of the worst humanitarian failures of our generation.”
A survey of 43 international and Palestinian aid organisations working in Gaza found that almost all have suspended or drastically cut services since a ceasefire ended on March 18, “with widespread and indiscriminate bombing making it extremely dangerous to move around”, the NGOs said.
In its latest update, the Israeli military claims to have eliminated a member of Hamas in the area around Khan Younis, whom it claims was the head of the group’s “weapons smuggling network”, Al Jazeera reports.
It added that over the past two days, the Israeli air force has struck over 110 targets throughout the Strip, including what the military says was a key post belonging to Hamas’s naval force in Nuseirat in the centre of the Strip.
AFP reports that Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said Israel failed to respect January’s ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately, Israel did not abide by this agreement,” said the ruler of Qatar, a key mediator of the deal.
Two Hamas officials have told AFP that the group’s discussions on an Israeli truce proposal were nearly complete, with a response expected soon.
“These talks are almost complete, and the group will send its response to the mediators once they finish. It’s expected the talks will wrap up soon — possibly even today,” an official said, with another member of the group confirming his account.
Israel communicated its latest proposal for a ceasefire to Hamas via Egyptian and Qatari mediators earlier this week, but statements from officials on both sides regarding the continuing presence of Israeli troops in Gaza have left little hope that a deal could be reached.
At least 40 people killed and 73 wounded arrived at Gaza hospitals in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll since October 2023 to at least 51,065, with 116,505 Palestinians wounded, Al Jazeera reports, citing the health ministry.
Since Israel resumed its bombing of the enclave on March 18, breaching a ceasefire agreement signed in January, at least 1,691 people have been killed and 4,464 wounded, it added.
Gaza’s civil defence agency has now said that a series of Israeli air strikes killed at least 37 people, most of them in encampments for displaced civilians, AFP reports.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, “most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded”.
“We were sitting peacefully in the tent, under God’s protection, when we suddenly saw something red glowing — and then the tent exploded, and the surrounding tents caught fire,” Israa Abu al-Rus told AFP.
Bassal said that Israeli strikes on two other encampments of displaced Gazans killed a further nine people — seven in the northern town of Beit Lahia, and a father and son near Al-Mawasi.
Separately, the civil defence agency reported two more attacks on displaced people in Jabalia — one that killed at least seven members of the Asaliya family, and another that killed three people at a school being used as a shelter. It added that two people were killed by Israeli shelling in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Palestinians mourn near the bodies of their relatives, killed in an Israeli strike, at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia on April 17, 2025. — AFP
Two Hamas officials told AFP that the group’s discussions on an Israeli truce proposal were nearly complete, with a response expected soon.
“These talks are almost complete, and the group will send its response to the mediators once they finish. It’s expected the talks will wrap up soon — possibly even today,” an official said, with another member of the group confirming his account.
Stephanie Tremblay, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, has said Israeli authorities continue to deny UN-planned coordinated missions to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza as an Israeli blockade on the Strip now enters its seventh week, Al Jazeera reports.
She said only two out of six planned humanitarian movements that were coordinated with Israeli authorities were facilitated yesterday. “The remaining four were denied, including one mission to retrieve fuel from Rafah which is urgently needed,” she said.
Hamas has accused Israel of attempting to starve the population of Gaza following Israel’s renewed declaration the previous day that no humanitarian aid would be allowed into the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.
“This is a public admission of committing a war crime, including the use of starvation as a weapon and the denial of basic necessities such as food, medicine, water, and fuel to innocent civilians for the seventh consecutive week,” the group said in a statement.
Philippe Lazzarini says that Israel’s ban on the entry of international media to Gaza to report independently “is fueling propaganda, disinformation & the spread of dehumanisation”.
In a post on X, he stated, “Palestinian journalists continue to do heroic work, paying a heavy price. 170 have been killed to date. Meanwhile, credible accounts & eye witness testimonies from relief organisations are being discredited [and] questioned.
“The free flow of information & independent reporting are key to facts & accountability during conflicts. Gaza should be no exception. Time is overdue to get international media into Gaza,” he wrote.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has called out the “clear and shameless double standard” of those demanding the release of Israeli captives in Gaza but staying silent as thousands of Palestinians languish in Israel’s jails, including women and children, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day today, PIJ said the “international community is tarnished by its silence regarding the suffering of tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, which has continued for decades”.
Of the nearly 10,000 Palestinians that support groups say are held in Israeli prisons, 3,498 are held without charge or trial under what’s known as “administrative detention”.
PIJ said that 400 children and almost 30 women are among those held, while some 2,000 people from Gaza have been arrested by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023 and that 63 prisoners have died in Israeli jails from medical negligence and torture.
Gaza’s civil defence agency has reported that a wave of Israeli air strikes hit multiple encampments for displaced Palestinians across the territory, killing at least 25 people.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said an overnight strike targeted several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis, resulting in 16 deaths.
“At least 16 martyrs, most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded following a direct strike by two Israeli missiles on several tents housing displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis,” Bassal told AFP.
According to Bassal, two additional strikes on other encampments of displaced people killed eight and wounded several more.
Seven were killed in a strike on tents in the northern town of Beit Lahia, while another attack near the Al-Mawasi area killed a father and his child who were living in a tent, Bassal said.
Israel’s Kan public broadcaster, citing unnamed defence establishment figures, now reports that Gaza only has enough food to last a month, according to Al Jazeera.
The Israeli outlet also said that “discussions are under way” within the Israeli military on “how to bring in humanitarian aid without it reaching Hamas”.
One proposal reportedly being examined is “stationary aid centres” established under the “management of international organisations and within the security envelope” of the Israeli military, according to Kan.
Most of the paramedics and rescue workers who were killed in Gaza last month were shot in the head or chest, according to a The New York Times report, Al Jazeera says.
The NYT saw the autopsy reports for 14 of the 15 aid workers killed in the attack, not including one UN worker who was also killed. Israel has admitted to carrying out the attack.
Israeli troops had fired on ambulances and a fire truck sent by the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the Civil Defence, according to witness accounts, video and audio of the March 23 attack.
The autopsies were performed by Dr Ahmad Dhair, the head of the Gaza health ministry’s forensic medicine unit, after the bodies were recovered from where Israeli soldiers buried them in southern Gaza in a mass grave, alongside their ambulances.
The attack has sparked international condemnation, with many experts labelling it a war crime.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has met Russian nationals freed from captivity in the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s October 2023 attacks on Israel and said Moscow’s longstanding ties with Palestinians helped secure their freedom, Reuters reports.
“The fact that you are now free is a result of Russia’s many years of stable relations with the Palestinian people, with the representatives of different organisations,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as telling former hostage Alexander Trufanov and members of his family.
“Here we have to offer a word of gratitude to the leadership and to the political wing of Hamas for a gesture made to us in carrying out this humanitarian act,” the agencies said he told the late-night Kremlin meeting.
Russia, Putin said, “had truly done everything possible” to secure Trufanov’s liberation and would undertake whatever was necessary to ensure those still in captivity would be freed.
Trufanov was freed after nearly 500 days in captivity in February as part of talks leading to a ceasefire. He thanked Putin for helping secure his release and hoped for the release of all remaining hostages whom he viewed “like brothers”.
China and Malaysia have said that Gaza is an inalienable part of the territory of Palestine, in a joint statement issued at the end of a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to Reuters.
They also urged a full and effective implementation of the ceasefire agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his negotiating team to continue the steps to advance the release of hostages still being held in Gaza, AFP reports.
“The prime minister issued directives for the continuation of the steps to advance the release of our hostages,” his office said in a statement, adding that he held an assessment on the issue with the negotiating team and the heads of the security establishment.
A senior Hamas official has told AFP that the group is still preparing its response to an Israeli proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.
“The movement’s response is still in preparation, and we affirm that there is no room for any partial deal,” Mahmoud Mardawi said, insisting that the group’s “weapons will not be subject to any negotiations”.
A partial view shows tents housing displaced Palestinians on the campus of the Islamic University in Gaza City on April 16, 2025. — AFP
An estimated 500,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the end of the Gaza ceasefire, when Israel resumed military operations in the narrow coastal territory, AFP reports citing the United Nations.
“Our humanitarian partners estimate that since March 18, about half a million people have been newly displaced or uprooted once more,” said Stephanie Tremblay, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
