FAMINE LOOMS
Talks since March have failed to restore a truce under which Hamas would release remaining hostages captured in the October 2023 assault on Israel that precipitated the war. Hamas has long said it would not free them unless Israel ends its campaign; Israel says it will fight on until Hamas is dismantled.
At the Arab League summit, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, whose country mediates Gaza peace talks alongside Qatar, said Israel’s actions aimed at “obliterating and annihilating” the Palestinians and “ending their existence in the Gaza Strip”.
United Nations experts say famine now looms in Gaza more than two months after Israel halted all deliveries of supplies. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher asked the Security Council this week if it would act to “prevent genocide”.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering of civilians for operating among them and hijacking aid, which Hamas denies. Israel says enough food reached Gaza during the six-week ceasefire at the start of the year to stave off hunger for now.
On Friday, Trump acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
A US-backed foundation aims to start distributing aid to Gazans by the end of May using private US security and logistics firms. The UN has said it will not work with the group because it is not impartial, neutral or independent.
Gaza’s health system is barely operational with hospitals hit repeatedly by the Israeli military during the 19-month war and medical supplies drying up.
The head of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan Al-Sultan, said huge numbers of wounded victims of the latest bombing campaign were in critical condition.
“Since midnight, we have received 58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble. The situation inside the hospital is catastrophic,” he said on X.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 5 that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communities on Oct 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.
Its military campaign has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, pushing nearly all inhabitants from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
NBC News reported on Friday, citing five people with knowledge of the matter, that the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya. All major Palestinian political groups reject any such displacement.
