US says Israel agreed to framework for a Gaza cease-fire

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt.

International mediators have worked for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. A deal likely would allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine.

The Israelis “have more or less accepted” the proposal, which includes the six-week cease-fire as well as the release by Hamas of hostages considered vulnerable, which includes the sick, the wounded, the elderly and women, the official said.

“Right now, the ball is in the court of Hamas and we are continuing to push this as hard as we possibly can,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House to brief reporters.

Officials from Israel and Hamas did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A senior Egyptian official said mediators Egypt and Qatar are expected to receive a response from Hamas during the Cairo talks scheduled to start Sunday. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity.

There is increasing criticism over the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive in northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of the conflict that began when the Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 250 hostages.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from the war climbed to 30,320. The Hamas-run agency doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures, but says women and children make up about two-thirds of those killed.

In the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s people now seek refuge, an Israeli airstrike struck tents outside the Emirati hospital, killing 11 people and wounding about 50, including health workers, the Health Ministry said. Israel’s military said it was targeting Islamic Jihad militants.

The U.S. began dropping food in pallets over Gaza on Saturday. It was the opening stage of an emergency humanitarian assistance authorized by President Joe Biden after more than 100 Palestinians who surged to pull goods off an aid convoy were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops this past week.

Three planes from Air Forces Central dropped 66 bundles containing about 38,000 meals into Gaza in southwest Gaza. The airdrop was coordinated with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, and the militaries of Jordan and Egypt said they also conducted airdrops.

Aid groups say airdrops should be only a last resort and instead urge the opening of other crossings into Gaza and the removal of obstacles at the few that are open.

On Thursday, people rushed about 30 trucks bringing a predawn delivery to the north. Palestinians said nearby Israeli troops shot into the crowds. Israel said they fired warning shots toward the crowd and insisted many of the dead were trampled. Doctors at hospitals in Gaza and a U.N. team that visited a hospital said large numbers of the wounded had been shot. The European Union’s diplomatic service urged an international investigation.

Gaza’s Health Ministry raised the death toll from Thursday’s violence to 118 after two more bodies were recovered Saturday. It said the wounded remained at 760. 

Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel organized Thursday’s convoy “and claims that we attacked the convoy intentionally and that we harmed people intentionally are baseless.”

Residents in northern Gaza say they are searching rubble and garbage for anything to feed their children, who barely eat one meal a day. Many families began mixing animal and bird food with grain to bake bread.

At least 10 children have starved to death, according to hospital records in Gaza, the World Health Organization said.

Israel’s offensive reduced much of densely populated northern Gaza to rubble. The military told Palestinians to move south, but as many as 300,000 people are believed to have remained.

Roughly one in six children under 2 in the north suffer from acute malnutrition and wasting, “the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world,” Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program, said this past week. 

People overwhelmed trucks and grabbed what they could, Skau said, forcing the WFP to suspend deliveries to the north.

Soad Abu Hussein, a widow and mother of five, said more than 5,000 people — mostly women and children — living with her in a school at the Jabaliya refugee camp have not received aid for more than four weeks. A group of people went to the shore to fish, but three were killed and two were wounded by gunfire from Israeli ships, she said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden said the U.S. would look for other ways of delivery “including possibly a marine corridor.”

Also Saturday, Israel said three soldiers were killed and 14 injured Friday when they inadvertently triggered explosives in a booby-trapped building outside Khan Younis in southern Gaza.