Israeli official says Gaza ceasefire proposal from Hamas is ‘workable’

Israel says it has received Hamas’s latest ceasefire proposal, with an official calling it “workable”, although no details were confirmed.

An Israeli source familiar with ceasefire talks said Israel was studying the proposal for the Gaza Strip.

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

The deal under discussion 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.

Israel said it was reviewing Hamas’s response. A statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed receipt of the Hamas reply on Thursday but did not specify what it entailed.

The offer came a day after more than 100 charity and human rights groups said Israel’s blockade and military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip towards starvation.

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

Gaza’s Health Ministry said 48 Palestinians have died of malnutrition in the past month, adding that 59 Palestinians died of malnutrition so far in 2025, up from 50 in 2024, and four in 2023 when Israel started its war against Hamas.

In the most recent cases, a man and a woman died of malnutrition on Wednesday, the Shifa Hospital told The Associated Press.

Of the 113 that died of malnutrition in Gaza since 2023, 81 were children, the health ministry said.

Ten women who were at a site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, described a chaotic scene on women-only day on Thursday and said they eventually left without any aid.

The foundation said its contractors used a “limited amount of pepper spray” to control crowds and prevent injuries, and did not fire any shots.

Some of the women said sound grenades were fired and others heard gunshots. They said Israeli forces were operating nearby. There was no immediate comment from the military.

Khadija al-Qahouji, 37, was shot in the head near the aid site and died, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the body. It did not have further details.

Meanwhile, Yotam Ottolenghi, the Jerusalem-born British chef and bestselling author, said the level of hunger in Gaza is “shocking beyond belief”.

In a post on social media, Ottolenghi said he is adding his voice to global calls for Israel to halt its attacks on Gaza and let aid enter without restriction.

“The sequence of events leading to this moment – with victims on both sides – cannot justify withholding food from a whole population,” he said. “This goes against any value I was raised on.”

Ottolenghi wrote a book with Palestinian Sami Tamimi called Jerusalem, covering Arab and Jewish cooking in the holy city.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to travel to Europe to meet key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and the release of hostages.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children.

At least five Palestinians were killed in central Gaza late on Wednesday, according to the Aqsa Hospital morgue that received the bodies on Thursday in the city of Deir al-Balah.

Two people, a man and a woman, were killed east of the city in Israeli tank shelling.

Another person was killed by Israeli troops in a shooting in the Bureij refugee camp, and two others were among a group of people hit by an Israeli strike in Zawaida.

Elsewhere, Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that two Palestinian teenage boys had been killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday night in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s military said its forces fired at Palestinians throwing petrol bombs towards a major road, killing two near the town of Al-Khader.

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

Violence has spiralled in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began. More than 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.