* Israeli forces kill 36 Palestinians at US-backed aid sites in Gaza
* Hamas says ceasefire proposal offers ‘no guarantees’ for end to Gaza war
By Usaid Siddiqui and Umut Uras 1 Jun 2025
Israeli forces kill 36 Palestinians at US-backed aid sites in Gaza
Israeli forces open fire on Palestinians gathered at aid distribution sites run by a US-backed group in southern and central Gaza, killing at least 35 people in Rafah and one more near the Netzarim Corridor.
Hamas is seeking changes to a ceasefire deal proposed by the US, but the country’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, says that the group’s response is “unacceptable”.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 54,381 Palestinians and wounded 124,054, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Gaza Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Hamas condemns Israel’s ‘brutal’ Rafah attack
The Gaza-based armed group has released a statement regarding the Israeli attack in Rafah near the GHF aid distribution point.
Here are its translated comments:
A brutal massacre was committed by the fascist occupation army, targeting thousands of citizens who had headed to an aid distribution centre west of Rafah.
This resulted in more than 35 killings and more than 150 injuries. This massacre confirms the fascist nature of the occupation and its criminal objectives behind this mechanism.
The army brutally opened fire on them, in a blatant confirmation of the premeditated intent to commit this crime.
We hold the Zionist occupation, along with the US administration, fully responsible for the massacres committed at the sites where the occupation’s aid distribution mechanism is being implemented, and for the use of starvation as a weapon of war against our people.
We call on the UN to form an independent international commission of inquiry and enter the Gaza Strip to investigate these systematic crimes against civilians and hold those responsible accountable as war criminals.
* Hamas says ceasefire proposal offers ‘no guarantees’ for end to Gaza war
Under the deal, 10 living captives will be freed, 18 bodies returned in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners, Hamas says.
31 May 2025
The Palestinian group Hamas has submitted its response to a United States-backed ceasefire proposal, but a leading official from the group said the proposed deal offered “no guarantees to end the war”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Basem Naim said that Hamas had still “responded positively” to the latest proposal relayed to it by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, despite the Palestinian group saying that the proposal was different to one it had agreed upon with Witkoff a week earlier.
“One week ago, we agreed with Mr Witkoff on one proposal, and we said, ‘This is acceptable, we can consider this a negotiating paper,'” Naim said. “He went to the other party, to the Israelis, to get their response. Instead of having a response to our proposal, he brought us a new proposal … which had nothing to do with what we agreed upon.”
In a statement released earlier on Saturday, Hamas had said that it had submitted a response to Witkoff, and that the proposal “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid” to Palestinians in Gaza.
Hamas added that 10 living Israeli captives would be released as part of the agreement, as well as the bodies of 18 dead Israelis, in exchange for an “agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners”.
Witkoff called Hamas’s response “totally unacceptable”.
“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” the envoy said in a post on social media. “That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families, and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Hamas’s response, “As Witkoff said, Hamas’s response is unacceptable and sets the situation back. Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
Israel has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with starvation looming across Gaza after weeks of Israeli blockade, and only a small flow of aid since Israel allowed it to resume in mid-May.
Starvation
With hopes for a permanent truce seemingly fading once again, the level of hunger and desperation inside Gaza grows, with Israel allowing only a trickle of humanitarian aid into the Strip after it had imposed a total blockade for more than two months. The UN warned on Friday that all of the 2.3 million population of Gaza is now at risk of famine. That came after it said in mid-May that one in every five Palestinians there is experiencing starvation.
The World Food Programme (WFP), which has enough food ready near Gaza’s borders to feed the besieged territory’s entire population for two months, renewed its call for an immediate ceasefire as the only way to get the food to starving Palestinians.
The UN’s food agency said in a statement that it brought 77 trucks loaded with flour into Gaza overnight and early on Friday, but they were stopped by people trying to feed their starving families.
The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is continuing with its own controversial aid distribution, which other aid groups say could violate humanitarian principles and militarise the delivery of desperately needed food. The Gaza Government Media Office said this week that at least 10 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces while trying to get aid.
“We went to this new area and we came out empty-handed,” resident Layla al-Masri said of a new GHF distribution point. “What they are saying about their will to feed the people of Gaza are lies. They neither feed people nor give them anything to drink.”
Another displaced Palestinian, Abdel Qader Rabie, said people across the besieged territory have nothing left to feed their families. “There’s no flour, no food, no bread. We have nothing at home,” he said.
Rabie said that every time he tries to get a box of aid at the GHF, he is swarmed by hundreds of other people trying to get it. “If you are strong, you get aid. If you are not, you leave empty-handed,” Rabie added.
There are also other risks. Families have reported that people have gone missing after reaching GHF distribution points.
“One of these cases is a man from the al-Mughari family – The family is appealing to the ICRC, OCHA, the civil defence teams, to go and search for him in that area – very close to the Netzarim Corridor [in central Gaza],” said Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. Israeli authorities rejected the accusation, Khoudary added.
Bombing and forced displacement
The Israeli army is continuing its attacks on Gaza, with the spokesperson of the territory’s civil defence saying that approximately 60 homes had been bombed in the last 48 hours in Gaza City and northern Gaza.
On Saturday, there were also reports from across Gaza of the Israeli bombing killing at least 20 Palestinians. More than 3,900 Palestinians have been killed since Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March and resumed its devastation of Gaza, despite growing international condemnation.
Since Friday’s early hours, the Israeli army has also ordered “all residents” of southern Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and Abasan to evacuate immediately after it said rockets were earlier fired. “The [army] will aggressively attack any area used as a launching pad for terrorist activity,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement. The area of southern Gaza “has been warned several times in the past and has been designated a dangerous combat zone”, he added.
According to the UN, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks alone, with displacement orders now covering the entirety of Gaza’s northernmost and southernmost governorates, as well as the eastern parts of each of the three governorates in between.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
