Gaza mediators intensifying ceasefire efforts, Hamas official says

A senior Hamas official has told the BBC that mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled. The comments came as US President Donald Trump said "great progress" was being made since Israel and Iran ended their 12-day war on Tuesday, and that his envoy Steve Witkoff thought an agreement between Israel and Hamas was "very close". Israeli attacks across Gaza on Wednesday killed at least 45 Palestinians, including some who were seeking aid, the Hamas-run health ministry said. Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that seven soldiers were killed in a bomb attack on Tuesday claimed by Hamas. "I think great progress is being made on Gaza, I think because of this attack that we made," President Trump told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday, referring to the US air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities carried out at the weekend amid the conflict between Israel and Iran. "I think we're going to have some very good news. I was talking to Steve Witkoff... [and] he did tell me that Gaza's very close," he added. Shortly after Trump spoke, the senior Hamas official told the BBC that mediators were "engaged in intensive contacts aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement". However, he added that the group had "not received any new proposal so far". An Israeli official also told the Haaretz newspaper that there has been no progress in the negotiations, and that major disagreements remained unresolved. Efforts by the US, Qatar and Egypt to broker a deal stalled at the end of May, when Witkoff said Hamas had sought "totally unacceptable" amendments to a US proposal backed by Israel for a 60-day truce, during which half the living Israeli hostages and half of those who have died would be released. Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on 18 March, collapsing a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its hostages. Fifty are still in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Israel also imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March, which it partially eased after 11 weeks following pressure from US allies and warnings from global experts that half a million people were facing starvation. At the same time, Israel and the US backed the establishment of a new aid distribution mechanism run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is intended to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid to Palestinians. They said the GHF's system would prevent aid being stolen by Hamas, which the group denies doing. The GHF, which uses US private security contractors, says it has distributed food packages containing more than 44 million meals since it began operating on 26 May, with more than 2.4 million handed out at three sites on Wednesday. However, the UN and other aid groups have refused to co-operate with the GHF, accusing it of co-operating with Israel's goals in a way that violates fundamental humanitarian principles. They have also expressed alarm at the near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed near the group's sites, which are inside Israeli military zones. According to Gaza's health ministry, at least 549 people have been killed and 4,000 injured while trying to collect aid since the GHF began distributing aid on 26 May. On Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said six people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire at crowds waiting near one of the GHF's food distribution centre in central Gaza. Three others were killed near a GHF site in the southern city of Rafah, he added. However, the Israeli military said it was "not aware of any incidents with casualties in those areas", while the GHF said the reports of any such incidents near its sites were false. In Gaza City, funerals were held for some of the 33 people who the health ministry said had been killed over the previous day while waiting for aid. "I say and repeat a million times," Abu Mohammed told Reuters news agency. "These aid points are not aid points, these are death points." Unicef spokesman James Elder, who has just visited Gaza, said: "So long as a population is denied food, people are being offered this lethal choice and, unfortunately, because it's in a combat zone, it cannot improve." The Civil Defence spokesman also said another six people, including a child, were killed in an air strike on a house early on Wednesday in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza. Five others were killed when homes in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, he said. More than 860 Palestinians were reported killed by Israeli forces in Gaza during the Israel-Iran conflict, which began when Israel launched an air campaign targeting Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Iran launched barrages of missiles towards Israel in response. People in Gaza were divided in their assessments of what the ceasefire meant for the territory. Some viewed the weakening of Iran, Hamas's key regional backer, as a potentially positive step towards achieving a truce in Gaza because it might force the group to ease its demands. Others, however, feared the end of the conflict would allow Israel to redirect its military focus back on Gaza and intensify its air and ground operations. One man in Khan Younis, Nader Ramadan, told the BBC that it felt like "everything got worse" in Gaza during the conflict. "The [Israeli] bombing intensified, the damage increased, and the incursion expanded in certain areas… We only felt the destruction," he said. Adel Abu Reda said the most difficult thing was the lack of access to aid. He said items were being looted and sold for inflated prices, and civilians were coming under Israeli fire when trying to get food. "What are we supposed to do?" he asked. "We feel the shooting and the killing all the time." In Israel, the military announced that seven of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Gaza on Tuesday - the deadliest such incident since the ceasefire collapsed. Spokesman Brig-Gen Effie Defrin said an explosive device was attached to an armoured vehicle in the Khan Younis area, and that the blast caused the vehicle to catch fire. Helicopters and rescue forces made several unsuccessful attempts to rescue them, he added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was "a difficult day for the people of Israel". The deaths renewed pressure on Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire, with the leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in his governing coalition saying Israel should end the war and bring home all the hostages. "I don't understand what we're fighting for and for what purpose... when soldiers are being killed all the time?" Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism told the Israeli parliament. The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. At least 56,157 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry. Additional reporting by Alice Cuddy in Jerusalem