Israel threatens Hamas with ’annihilation’ as Trump says Gaza ceasefire ‘very close’
Israel has said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated”, as Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close”.
It comes amid dire conditions on the ground, with the United Nations warning that Gaza’s entire population was at risk of famine.
Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported that on Friday, defence minister Israel Katz said Hamas must agree to a ceasefire proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff or be destroyed, after the Palestinian militant group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands. However, Hamas said it was still considering the text.
“The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff deal’ for the release of the hostages – or be annihilated,” said Katz.
Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war in Gaza have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in March after a short-lived truce.
In the US, the Trump told reporters “they’re very close to an agreement on Gaza”, adding: “We’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, food shortages in Gaza persist, with aid only trickling in after the partial lifting by Israel of a more than two-month blockade.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), called Gaza “the hungriest place on Earth”. He said:
It’s the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine.
In other developments:
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), has described the difficulties faced by the UN in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip as an “an operational straitjacket”. Laerke said the mission to deliver aid was “in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”. Once truckloads entered Gaza, they were often “swarmed by desperate people”, he said.
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after media reported that Arab ministers planning to attend had been stopped from coming. The delegation included ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Palestinian Authority officials said.
Israeli airstrikes have struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have said, and reportedly one civilian has been killed in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month. “A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that Iran considers nuclear weapons “unacceptable”, reiterating the country’s longstanding position amid delicate negotiations with the United States. Iran has held five rounds of talks with the US in search of a new nuclear agreement to replace the deal with major powers Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The commander of Kurdish forces that control northeast Syria said on Friday that his group is in direct contact with Turkey and that he would be open to improving ties, including by meeting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Key events
Here are some more images coming in today via the newswires:
Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud arrived in Damascus on Saturday with an economic delegation on a visit to discuss ways to support Syria’s war-ravaged economy, authorities said.
Saudi Arabia has been one of the most important regional supporters of Syria’s new authorities, who took over after ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December after nearly 14 years of civil war.
On a visit to Riyadh earlier this month, US president Donald Trump said he would lift US sanctions on Syria, a move that paves the way for economic recovery in the war-torn country.
Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani welcomed Prince Faisal, who is “heading a high-level delegation”, on arrival at Damascus airport, a Syria foreign ministry statement said. The pair were scheduled to hold a press conference this afternoon, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A Saudi foreign ministry statement said Prince Faisal would meet with interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and “the high-level economic delegation” would hold talks with Syrian officials about ways of cooperating “that contribute to supporting Syria’s economy and strengthen institution building”.
In February, al-Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in his first trip abroad as president.
Arab ministers condemn Israel ‘ban’ on planned West Bank visit
The foreign ministers of five Arab countries who had planned to visit the occupied West Bank this weekend on Saturday condemned Israel’s decision to block their plans, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The ministers condemned “Israel’s decision to ban the delegation’s visit to Ramallah [on Sunday] to meet with the president of the State of Palestine, Mahmud Abbas”, the Jordanian foreign ministry said.
Ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been expected to take part alongside Turkey and the secretary-general of the Arab League.
Israel had announced late on Friday that it would not cooperate, effectively blocking the visit as it controls the territory’s borders and airspace.
Abbas “intended to host in Ramallah a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state,” said a statement attributed to an unidentified official, reports AFP. The statment continued: “Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel. Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
Had the visit gone ahead, the delegation’s head Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud would have become the first Saudi foreign minister to visit the West Bank.
At least 60 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes in last 24 hours, says Gaza health ministry
The Gaza health ministry said that at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours.
It said three people were shot by Israeli gunfire early on Saturday morning in the southern city of Rafah. Three other people were killed, parents and a child, when their car was struck in Gaza City, reports the Associated Press (AP).
An internal document shared with aid groups about security incidents, seen by the Associated Press (AP), said there were four incidents of facilities being looted in three days at the end of May, not including the convoy on Saturday.
The UN says it has been unable to get enough aid in because of fighting. On Friday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it only picked up five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kareem Shalom crossing, and the other 60 trucks had to return due to intense hostilities in the area.
An Israeli official said his country has offered the UN logistical and operational support but “the UN is not doing their job”. Instead, a new US– and Israeli-backed foundation started operations in Gaza this week, distributing food at several sites in a chaotic rollout. Israel says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) will replace the massive aid operation that the UN and others have carried out throughout the war.
It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid. The UN denies that significant diversion takes place, reports the AP.
The GHF works with armed contractors, which is says is needed to distribute food safely. Aid groups have accused the foundation of militarising aid.
Hungry Palestinians in Gaza block and offload dozens of UN food trucks
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip blocked and offloaded dozens of food trucks, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Saturday, as desperation mounts after Israel’s monthslong blockade and airstrikes while talks of a ceasefire inch forward.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the WFP said that 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks were able to reach their destination.
A nearly three-month Israeli blockade on Gaza has pushed the population to the brink of famine. While the pressure slightly eased in recent days as Israel allowed some aid to enter, organisations say there still is not nearly enough food getting in.
The WFP said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high despite the food aid that is entering now. “We need to flood communities with food for the next few days to calm anxieties and rebuild the trust with communities that more food is coming,” the agency said in a statement.
A witness in the southern city of Khan Younis told the AP that the UN convoy was stopped at a makeshift roadblock and offloaded by desperate civilians in their thousands. Most people carried bags of flour on their backs or heads. He said at one point a forklift was used to offload pallets from the stranded trucks. The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.
The UN said earlier this month that Israeli authorities have forced them to use unsecured routes within areas controlled by the Israeli military in the eastern areas of Rafah and Khan Younis, where armed gangs are active and trucks were stopped.
The AP said that Israel’s military did not immediately respond to comment.
Israel’s ‘violations’ in Gaza make world more dangerous, Norway warns
Miranda Bryant
Israel is setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza that is making the whole world more dangerous, Norway’s international development minister has warned.
Norway has played a historical role in the region, including by facilitating the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians that led to a celebrated breakthrough deal in 1993. Last year it recognised the Palestinian state, one of a minority of European countries to do so.
“For the last one and a half years we have seen very low respect for international law in the war in Gaza and in recent months it is worse than ever before,” Åsmund Aukrust said. “So for the Norwegian government it is very important to protest against this, to condemn this very clear violation.”
In addition to contributing to the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, he said Israel’s actions posed a global threat to other and future conflicts.
“We are very concerned that there will be a new international standard where food is used as a weapon, where the UN is denied entrance to the war and conflict zone, and other NGOs are denied entrance,” he said. “And Israel is building up something they call Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is to militarise humanitarian aid.”
GHF, the controversial Israeli and US-backed logistical group, started distributing food in Gaza this week. Amid chaotic scenes, Israeli forces said they fired “warning shots” at a distribution centre. Gaza health officials said at least one civilian had been killed and 48 injured.
A UN-backed assessment earlier this month found that the entire population of the Gaza Strip, approximately 2.1 million people, were at critical risk of famine, with half a million people categorised as in catastrophe.
Aukrust said:
We are afraid and very concerned that this might be a new standard in international law and this will make the world a lot more dangerous to all of us.
However, he said it was not up to politicians to decide whether the term genocide applied to Gaza, saying that was a decision for the international court of justice. “Genocide is the worst crime a country can do and the worst crime that politicians can do and this should not be polarised,” he said.
However, he said Oslo would be keeping an “open line” to all parties – including Hamas – for dialogue and promised that Norway would be “there for the long run” to rebuild Gaza.
Western officials suspect that the uranium traces discovered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Iran could provide evidence that the country had a secret military nuclear program until 2003, reports the Associated Press (AP).
One of the sites became known publicly in 2018 after Benjamin Netanyahu revealed it at the United Nations general assembly and called it a clandestine nuclear warehouse hidden at a rug-cleaning plant.
Iran denied this but in 2019, IAEA inspectors detected the presence of human-made uranium particles there.
After initially blocking IAEA access, inspectors were able to collect samples in 2020 from two other locations where they also detected the presence of artificial uranium particles. The three locations became known as Turquzabad, Varamin, and Marivan.
A fourth undeclared location named as Lavisan-Shian is also part of the IAEA probe but IAEA inspectors never visited the site because it was razed and demolished by Iran after 2003.
In Saturday’s comprehensive report, the IAEA says that the “lack of answers and clarifications provided by Iran” to questions the watchdog had regarding Lavisan-Shian, Varamin and Marivan “has led the agency to conclude that these three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear program carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material.”
Iran ‘determined to complete nuclear weapons programme’ says Israel
Israel said Saturday’s report was a clear warning sign that Iran is “totally determined to complete its nuclear weapons program,” according to a statement from the office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports the Associated Press (AP).
It said the report “strongly reinforces what Israel has been saying for years — the purpose of Iran’s nuclear program is not peaceful.”
It also added that Iran’s level of enrichment “has no civilian justification whatsoever” and appealed on the international community to “act now to stop Iran.”
In a separate in-depth report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog criticised “less than satisfactory” cooperation from Tehran over its scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear programme, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“While Iran continues to cooperate with the agency on matters of routine safeguards implementation, in a number of respects… its cooperation with the agency has been less than satisfactory,” the report said.
It specifically notes Tehran’s lack of progress in explaining nuclear material found at undeclared sites.
“In particular, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the agency’s questions and has sanitised locations as listed in this report, which has impeded agency verification activities.”
Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a landmark 2015 deal with Tehran during his first term as president. The deal had exchanged sanctions relief for limits on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Iran increases stockpile of enriched uranium
Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Saturday and called on Tehran to urgently change course and comply with the agency’s probe, reports the Associated Press (AP)
The report comes at a sensitive time as Tehran and Washington have been holding several rounds of talks over a possible nuclear deal that president Donald Trump is trying to reach.
The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was seen by AP, says that as of 17 May, Iran has amassed 408.6kg of uranium enriched up to 60%.
The stockpile was described as a “short, technical step away” from weapons-grade levels of 90%. That’s an increase of 133.8kg since the IAEA’s last report in February, when the stockpile was said to be 274.8kg.
Approximately 42kg of 60% enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb, if enriched further to 90%, according to the watchdog.
The IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has stressed repeatedly that “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state enriching to this level.”
On Saturday, Grossi said he “reiterates his urgent call upon Iran to cooperate fully and effectively” with the IAEA.
On Thursday, senior Iranian officials dismissed speculation about an imminent nuclear deal with the US, emphasising that any agreement must fully lift sanctions and allow the country’s nuclear program to continue.
Al Jazeera has reported that Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital is operating at just 20% capacity, according to the medical complex’s director.
Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya told the news outlet:
We are facing a tragic situation, and every day kidney patients die due to the inability to treat them.
International organisations are trying hard to provide assistance, but the occupation is preventing the entry of aid.
The comments come as hospital officials claim 27 people were killed in new Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has delayed a planned trip to the West Bank after Israel blocked it, a Saudi source told Reuters.
Palestinian sources said the visit was at the invitation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to host a Saudi-led delegation of Arab foreign ministers in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The ministers needed approval from Israel which controls access to the West Bank.
