Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha said yesterday.
The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are nonetheless expected to continue, the sources said.
In Gaza, medics said 31 people trying to get food aid were killed yesterday when Israeli troops opened fire, the latest mass shooting around a US-backed aid distribution system that the UN says has resulted in 800 people killed in six weeks.
Witnesses who spoke to Reuters described people being shot in the head and torso. Reuters saw several bodies of victims wrapped in white shrouds as family members wept at Nasser Hospital.
The Israeli military said its troops had fired warning shots, but that its review of the incident had found no evidence of anyone hurt by its soldiers’ fire.
Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in Qatar for a week in a renewed push for an agreement which envisages a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals and discussions on ending the war.
US President Donald Trump, who hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past week, had said he hoped for a deal soon. But the Israeli and Palestinian sources described longstanding issues that remain unresolved.
A Palestinian source said that Hamas had rejected withdrawal maps which Israel had proposed that would leave around 40 per cent of Gaza under Israeli control, including all of the southern area of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza.
Two Israeli sources said Hamas wanted Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March.
The Palestinian source said matters regarding aid and guarantees on an end to the war were also presenting a challenge. The crisis could be resolved with more US intervention, the source said.
Hamas has long demanded an agreement to end the war before it would free remaining hostages; Israel has insisted it would end the fighting only when all hostages are released and Hamas is dismantled as a fighting force and administration in Gaza.
Yesterday’s reported mass shooting near an aid distribution point in Rafah was the latest in a series of such incidents.
“We were sitting there, and suddenly there was shooting towards us. For five minutes we were trapped under fire. The shooting was targeted. It was not random. Some people were shot in the head, some in the torso, one guy next to me was shot directly in the heart,” eyewitness Mahmoud Makram told Reuters.
“There is no mercy there, no mercy. People go because they are hungry but they die and come back in body bags.”
After partially lifting a total blockade of all goods into Gaza in late May, Israel launched a new aid distribution system, relying on a group backed by the US to distribute food under the protection of Israeli troops.
The United Nations has rejected the system as inherently dangerous and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles. Israel says it is necessary to keep fighters from diverting aid.
Another 33 Palestinians were fatally shot on their way to an aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip yesterday, while Israeli air strikes killed at least 28 Palestinians including four children, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said.
The Red Cross said its field hospital saw its largest influx of dead in more than a year of operation after the shootings, and that the overwhelming majority of the more than 100 people hurt had gunshot wounds.
The air strikes in central Gaza’s Deir Al Balah killed 13, including four children, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Fifteen others were killed in Khan Younis in the south, according to Nasser Hospital. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Intense air strikes continued last night in the area of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
The 21-month war has left much of Gaza’s population of more than two million reliant on outside aid while food security experts warn of famine. Israel blocked and then restricted aid entry after ending the latest ceasefire in March.
“All responsive individuals reported they were attempting to access food distribution sites,” the Red Cross said after the shootings near Rafah, noting the “alarming frequency and scale” of such mass casualty incidents.
Abdullah Al Haddad said he was 200 meters from the aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) close to the Shakoush area when an Israeli tank started firing at crowds of Palestinians.
“We were together, and they shot us at once,” he said, writhing in pain from a leg wound at Nasser Hospital.
Mohammed Jamal Al Sahloo, another witness, said Israel’s military had ordered them to proceed to the site when the shooting started.
Sumaya Al Sha’er’s 17-year-old son, Nasir, was killed, hospital officials said.
“He said to me, ‘Mom, you don’t have flour and today I’ll go and bring you flour, even if I die, I’ll go and get it,’” she said. “But he never came back home.”
Until then, she said, she had prevented the teenager from going to GHF sites because she thought it was too dangerous.
In a separate effort, the UN and aid groups say they struggle to distribute humanitarian aid because of Israeli military restrictions and a breakdown of law and order that has led to widespread looting.
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