Closing summary
US special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Israel in a bid to salvage ceasefire talks and tackle a humanitarian crisis in Gaza where a global hunger monitor has warned that famine was unfolding. Israeli media reported that Witkoff will visit US-Israeli-backed GHF aid sites in Gaza during his trip to Israel.
Donald Trump has said in a post on his Truth Social that the “fastest way to end humanitarian crises in Gaza” is for “Hamas to surrender and release hostages”.
More than seventy women, ranging in age from 13 to over 70, from the village of Umm al-Kheir in Masafer Yatta, in the West Bank, have gone on hunger strike, demanding the return of the body of Awdah al-Hathaleen, a resident of the village who was murdered by an Israeli settler on Monday. Al-Hathaleen, who was an activist and a journalist, helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
The UK government will not get into a “to and fro” with Hamas over its plans to recognise a Palestinian state, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said, adding: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” Speaking to reporters in Swindon, he said: “Look, our requests that all hostages must be released and that Hamas can play no future role in the governance of Gaza or a Palestinian state are long-standing.
Portugal’s centre-right government will consult the main political parties and conservative president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa about the potential recognition of a Palestinian state, prime minister Luis Montenegro said on Thursday. Unlike neighbouring Spain, whose leftist government recognised Palestinian statehood in May 2024 alongside Ireland and Norway and called on other EU countries to do the same, Portugal has taken a more cautious approach, saying it wanted to work out a common position with other EU countries first.
France’s foreign minister on Thursday said a US and Israel-backed aid distribution system in Gaza had generated a “bloodbath” and had to cease activity. “I want to call for the cessation of the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the militarised distribution of humanitarian aid that has generated a bloodbath in distribution lines in Gaza, which is a scandal, which is shameful, and has to stop,” Foreign and European Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters after meeting his Cyprus counterpart in Nicosia.
Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson urged the European Union to suspend the trade component of the bloc’s association agreement with Israel. In a post on social media, he said: “The situation in Gaza is utterly deplorable, and Israel is not fulfilling its most basic obligations and agreed-upon commitments regarding humanitarian aid.”
Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on Thursday that talks on a two-state solution “must begin now”, warning Berlin would respond to “unilateral steps”, Reuters reports. In a statement before heading to Israel AFP reports he said that the recent UN conference on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - boycotted by the US and Israel - showed that “Israel is finding itself increasingly in the minority”.
British prime minister Keir Starmer has said that he “particularly” listens to hostages who were held captive by Hamas after a British-Israeli woman held hostage by Hamas criticised his pledge to recognise a Palestinian state. Asked about criticism over the decision and a warning from peers that it could breach international law, Starmer said that “we do need to do everything we can to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.
At least 111 Palestinians, including 91 aid seekers, have been killed and 820 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry says.
The BBC has shown footage of humanitarian aid being airdropped into Gaza.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on Thursday that Lebanese political parties need to seize the opportunity and hand over their weapons sooner rather than later. He said his country was determined to disarm Hezbollah, a day after the group’s chief said those demanding its disarmament were serving Israeli goals.
Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani said his country wants Russia “by our side” and called for “mutual respect” between the two nations following the overthrow of Syria’s previous Moscow-backed government last year, AFP reports.
Iran on Thursday described as “malicious” fresh US sanctions targeting a shipping empire controlled by the son of a top political advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, AFP reports.
The United States said on Thursday it would deny visas to Palestinian Authority officials, accusing the body which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank of seeking to “internationalize” the situation, AFP reports. The organisation is “taking actions to internationalize its conflict with Israel such as through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ),” the State Department said, also accusing the Palestinian Authority of “continuing to support terrorism.”
The Palestinian Authority said Israeli settlers set fire to homes and cars in a West Bank village on Thursday, killing one man, in the latest attack in the occupied territory, AFP reports. “Forty-year-old Khamis Abdel-Latif Ayad was martyred due to smoke inhalation caused by fires set by settlers in citizens’ homes and vehicles in the village of Silwad at dawn,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
Aid packages, dropped from an airplane, descend over Gaza today, as seen from the central Gaza Strip.
