Tel Aviv, July 24: Israel said it received Hamas’ latest ceasefire proposal, with an Israeli official calling it “workable,” although no details were provided.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on record. Hamas confirmed in a statement early Thursday that it sent the proposal to mediators.

The Hamas response came as top US envoy Steve Witkoff was set for travel to Europe, where he is supposed to meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and the release of hostages.

It also comes a day after more than 100 charity and human rights groups said that Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation.

Experts say Gaza is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and the offensive launched in response to Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack.

Israel’s war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack, has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children.

Here is the latest:

American Jewish groups demand an investigation into Israeli settler violence

Prominent religious Jewish leaders in the United States are calling on Israel to investigate a surge of settler violence against Palestinians and the recent killing of an American citizen by Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union for Reform Judaism and the American Conference of Cantors said Israel must undertake a “full investigation” into the death of Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian-American from Tampa, Florida, who Palestinian authorities say was beaten to death by Israeli settlers while visiting family in the West Bank.

Violence has spiralled in the occupied West Bank since the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, 2023, with at least 955 Palestinians killed there by Israeli fire, according to the United Nations.

The rabbis said Israel must also investigate the “growing phenomenon” of settler violence overall. They wrote that the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “seems to tolerate and even encourage violence against Palestinians.”

Israeli official says Hamas’ latest proposal is workable

An Israeli official familiar with ceasefire talks said a Hamas proposal was “workable” and that Israel was studying it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on record.

Hamas confirmed sending a response to mediators in an statement early Thursday.

Israel said that it was reviewing Hamas’ response to the latest ceasefire proposal to potentially wind down the war. A statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed receipt of the Hamas response Thursday but did not specify what it entailed.

Israeli fire kills two teens in the occupied West Bank

Palestinian health officials said Thursday that two Palestinian teenage boys were killed by Israeli fire Wednesday night in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s military said its forces had fired at Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails toward a highway, killing two near the West Bank town of Al-Khader.

Palestinian health officials named the teens killed as Ahmed Al-Salah, 15, and Mohammed Khaled Alian Issa, 17.

Violence has spiralled in the occupied West Bank since the war that began with Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Over 955 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli fire during that time, according to the United Nations, many during raids Israel says are to stamp out militancy.

Moscow, July 24: A Russian An-24 aircraft carrying 49 people, including five children and six crew members, crashed in the mountainous Amur region on Thursday, killing all on board, according to local media reports.

The ill-fated flight, operated by the Siberia-based Angara Airlines, had departed from Blagoveshchensk and was en route to Tynda, near the Russia-China border, when it lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly before its scheduled landing.

According to Russia’s state news agency TASS, the aircraft reportedly caught fire mid-air and vanished from radar.

Rescue helicopters later located the burning wreckage on a remote mountainside, approximately 16 kilometres from Tynda.

Officials from the Amur Centre for Civil Defence and Fire Safety confirmed that “no survivors were found when a Mi-8 search helicopter flew over the crash site.”

“The aircraft caught fire upon crashing,” said a spokesperson. “Rescue operations have been hampered by the extremely difficult terrain, as the crash site lies on a steep, inaccessible slope.”

The harsh geographical conditions of the region — dense taiga forests and swampy terrain — further complicated rescue efforts.

The aircraft did not send any distress signals before disappearing, heightening questions over what went wrong.

Preliminary reports suggest the An-24 may have been attempting a second approach to land at Tynda Airport when it went off the radar.

A Rosaviatsia aircraft and multiple rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the area when the information was received earlier in the day.

“All necessary forces and means have been deployed to search for the plane,” said Amur region governor Vasily Orlov.

Investigators from the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office have launched a probe into the incident.

The cause of the crash remains unclear, and officials are expected to begin recovery operations and black box retrieval once ground access becomes possible.

United Nations, July 24: Voicing concern over the persisting humanitarian crisis in Gaza, India asserted that a ceasefire must be put in place, emphasising that “intermittent pauses in hostilities” are “not enough” to address the scale of challenges facing the region’s people.

“Today’s meeting takes place against the backdrop of a persisting humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, addressing an open debate in the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“Intermittent pauses in hostilities are not enough to address the scale of humanitarian challenges confronting the people, who grapple daily with acute shortages of food and fuel, inadequate medical services and lack of access to education,” Harish said at the open debate on the ‘Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question’.

Underlining that the way ahead is clear, and highlighting India’s consistent position in this regard, Harish said the ongoing human suffering must not be allowed to continue.

“Humanitarian assistance needs to be facilitated in a safe, sustained and timely manner. There is no substitute to peace. A ceasefire must be put in place. All hostages must be released. Dialogue and diplomacy remain the only viable paths to achieving these objectives. There are no other fixes or solutions,” he said.

He also expressed hope that an upcoming UN conference on the Israel-Palestine conflict would pave the way for “concrete steps” towards achieving a two-State solution.

Harish told the Council debate, held under Pakistan’s presidency of the Security Council for the month of July, that India shares historic and strong ties with its Palestinian brothers and sisters.

“We have always stood by them and our commitment towards the Palestinian cause is unwavering,” he said, noting that India was the first non-Arab country to recognise the State of Palestine.

Describing the health and education situation in Gaza as “particularly troubling”, Harish said the World Health Organisation estimates that around 95 per cent of all hospitals in Gaza are damaged or destroyed.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that more than 650,000 children have had no schooling for over 20 months, he said.

Harish said that India takes note of the High-Level International Conference on the implementation of a two-State solution scheduled for July 28-30.

“While engaging in a forward-leaning and constructive manner, it is our hope that this conference would pave the way for concrete steps towards achieving a two-State solution,” Harish said.

He said India underscores its readiness to contribute to efforts aimed at shaping a political horizon that restores hope for the Palestinians and achieving sustained peace in the Middle East.

The high-level conference, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, was scheduled to take place from June 17-20 but was postponed due to escalating tensions in the region.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has stressed that it is essential to keep alive the two-State solution perspective “with all the terrible things we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank.

“And for those that doubt about the two-state solution, I ask: What is the alternative? Is it a one-state solution in which either the Palestinians are expelled or the Palestinians will be forced to live in their land without rights? That would be totally unacceptable. I firmly believe that it is the duty of the international community to keep the two-State solution alive and then to materialise the conditions to make it happen,” he had said.

President of the General Assembly Philemon Yang has described the international conference as a crucial opportunity that “we must seize to chart an irreversible path towards the implementation of the two-State solution. It is imperative that this conference succeeds.”

India reiterated that the pathway to enduring peace is rooted in a two-State solution – one that establishes a sovereign, viable and independent State of Palestine within recognised and mutually agreed borders, living side by side with Israel in peace.

India’s endeavour is to make a “tangible impact” on the daily lives of the Palestinians by implementing projects in diverse sectors, and the country is currently implementing projects valued at more than USD 40 million, Harish said.

Deir al-Balah, Jul 23: More than 100 charity and human rights groups said Wednesday that Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation, as Israeli strikes killed another 29 people overnight, according to local health officials.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, was set to meet with a senior Israeli official about ceasefire talks, a sign that lower-level negotiations that have dragged on for weeks could be approaching a breakthrough.

Experts say Gaza is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and the offensive launched in response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. The head of the World Health Organization said Gaza is “witnessing a deadly surge” in malnutrition and related diseases, and that a “large proportion” of its roughly 2 million people are starving.

Israel says it allows enough aid into the territory and faults delivery efforts by U.N. agencies, which say they are hindered by Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of security.

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 50 hostages it holds, around 20 of them believed to be alive, in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel has vowed to recover all the captives and continue the war until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed.

Chaos, starvation and death

In an open letter, 115 organizations, including major international aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”

The letter blamed Israeli restrictions and “massacres” at aid-distribution points. Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on crowds seeking aid, killing more than 1,000 people. Israel says its forces have only fired warning shots and that the death toll is exaggerated.

The Israeli government’s “restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” the letter said.

WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that criticism, telling reporters that acute malnutrition centers in Gaza are full of patients and lack adequate supplies. He said rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10% and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20% are malnourished, often severely.

The U.N. health agency’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza and that the WHO had reports that at least 21 children under 5 have died so far this year.

Israel says critics are ‘echoing Hamas’ propaganda

The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism in the open letter and accused the groups of “echoing Hamas’ propaganda.” It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 trucks are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the U.N.

That’s an average of around 70 trucks a day, the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.

The U.N. says it has struggled to deliver aid inside Gaza because of Israeli military restrictions, ongoing fighting and a breakdown of law and order. An alternative system established by Israel and an American contractor has been marred by violence and controversy.

Top adviser to Netanyahu will meet US envoy in Rome

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff was headed to Europe to meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and release of hostages.

“We want this ceasefire to happen as soon as possible, and we want these hostages to be released,” Leavitt said.

An official familiar with the negotiations said Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was traveling to Rome to meet Witkoff on Thursday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

The evolving deal is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.

Overnight strikes kill at least 29

Israel has continued to carry out waves of daily airstrikes against what it says are militant targets but which often kill women and children. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.

One of the overnight strikes hit a house in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead included six children and two women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck an Islamic Jihad militant, and that the incident was under review because of reports of civilian casualties.

Shifa said another strike late Tuesday in Gaza City killed three children.

A strike on an apartment in northern Gaza killed at least six people. Among the dead were three children and two women, including one who was pregnant, the ministry said. The military said it struck a Hamas operative.

In central Gaza, a strike in a densely populated part of the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed eight people and wounded 57, according to Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the October 7 attack and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.