Israel's top diplomat urges seizing chance after Trump ceasefire push
Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations against Hamas militants.
The civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 33 people on Wednesday.
Trump on Tuesday urged Hamas to accept a 60-day ceasefire, saying Israel had agreed to finalise such a deal.
Without directly mentioning Trump's remarks, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that "a large majority within the government and the population is in favour of the plan to free the hostages" held by Hamas in Gaza.
AFP | Jack GUEZ
"If the opportunity arises, it must not be missed!" Saar wrote on X.
Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas's 2023 attack that triggered the war, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
On the ground in southern Gaza, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five members of the same family were killed in an Israeli air strike on Wednesday that hit a tent housing displaced people in the coastal Al-Mawasi area.
Despite being declared a safe zone by Israel in December 2023, Al-Mawasi has been hit by repeated Israeli strikes.
- Children covered in blood -
AFP footage from the area showed makeshift tent structures blown apart as Palestinians picked through the wreckage trying to salvage what was left of their belongings.
One man held a pack of nappies, asking: "Is this a weapon?"
"They came here thinking it was a safe area and they were killed... What did they do?" said another resident, Maha Abu Rizq, against a backdrop of destruction.
AFP footage from nearby Khan Yunis city showed infants covered in blood being rushed into Nasser Hospital. One man carrying a child whose face was smeared with blood screamed: "Children, children!"
Some appeared terrified while others lay still on hospital beds in bloodied bandages and clothes as medics treated them.
AFP | -
Further north, Bassal said four people from the same family were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City, and another five in a drone strike on a house in the central Deir el-Balah area.
Bassal later reported seven killed in a strike in Gaza City, five more killed by Israeli army fire near an aid distribution site close to the southern city of Rafah, and a further death following Israeli fire near an aid site in the centre of the territory.
They are the latest in a string of deadly incidents targeting those waiting for much-needed food aid.
He said a further four people were killed in an air strike on a tent for displaced people southwest of Gaza City and two in an air strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it "is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" in line with "international law, and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm".
On Tuesday the military said that in recent days its forces had expanded operations across Gaza, "eliminating dozens of terrorists and dismantling hundreds of terror infrastructure sites".
- Ceasefire push -
After months of stalled mediation efforts to bring an end to the war, Trump on Tuesday said on social media that a new ceasefire push has Israel's support.
"Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War," Trump said.
He added that Qatari and Egyptian mediators, who have been in direct contact with Hamas throughout the war, would deliver "this final proposal".
AFP | -
"I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better -- IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE."
Nadav Miran, the brother of hostage Omri Miran, told AFP that he was against a partial agreement that "would leave Hamas in place".
Such an agreement "would not ensure the return of all the hostages... they must all be brought back at once," added Miran, who is part of a grouping of hostage relatives opposed to negotiations with Hamas.
Trump is due to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next week.
Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,012 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
By Alice Chancellor With Afp Team In Gaza
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A woman mourns over the shrouded body of a Palestinian killed during a reported Israeli strike on a humanitarian aid distribution warehouse in the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City, in the central Gaza Strip on June 30, 2025. Despite misconceptions, Israel is not trying to starve the Gazan people, says the writer. Image: AFP Nicholas Woode-Smith Roberto Amaral's comparison of Gaza to Auschwitz is not just patently ahistorical but belies an ignorance of the realities of the Gaza conflict and the true human cost of the Holocaust (From Auschwitz to Gaza: The modern-day concentration camp, published in the Sunday Independent and IOL, 9 June 2025). To equate the systematic industrial genocide of six million Jews in Auschwitz with Israel's military campaign in Gaza is not only a gross distortion but a deeply offensive minimisation of the Holocaust. In five years, a patch of dirt approximately 346 acres large, guarded by 10 miles of barbed wire, became the last resting place of over 1.1 million innocents. The vast majority of those exterminated were Jews. Auschwitz was just one of the many concentration and death camps constructed by the Nazi regime to exterminate Jews and their perceived enemies. Six million Jews were systematically rounded up, put into hellish camps, and shot, gassed, brutalised, tortured and slaughtered. The global Jewish population only recovered from this genocide in recent years. The scale of the operation and its cold and calculated industrial efficiency were unlike anything that the world had ever seen before. Jakub Nowakowski, Director of Cape Town's Holocaust & Genocide Centre, poignantly highlights the intense and concentrated cruelty of the Nazi's final solution: 'Six camps... became centres of industrialised murder... In Bełżec alone, 500,000 Jews were killed in just ten months.' Amaral's use of the term 'Luciferian' to describe Israel reveals much of the underlying bigotry of his argument. Describing an entire state as satanic is not a political critique; it's dehumanisation. This language echoes some of the oldest antisemitic tropes in history, many of which fuelled genocidal ideologies in Europe. Amaral wishes to paint Israel as the fundamental antagonist in what is a tragic and complicated conflict. He fails to mention the October 7 massacre, one of the largest mass atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, and the event that caused this war in the first place. As Nowakowski pertinently comments: 'It is worth keeping in mind that it was Hamas that sparked this latest cycle of violence with its attack on Israel on October 7, two years ago, not the Israeli army.' Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Further, Amaral refuses to call the conflict a war, stripping Gazans and Hamas of their agency and acting as if Palestinians are only passive victims who have not pulled a single trigger. It is this passivity that Amaral asserts is further evidence of Israel's genocide against the Gaza people. But there is a large difference between Gaza and Auschwitz. And genocide isn't just about the number of dead. As Nowakowski explains: 'The definition of genocide... turns on one thing above all else—intent. For an atrocity to be genocide, its defining objective must be the physical elimination of a group, or a part of that group.' In the case of the Holocaust: 'These six camps, including Bełżec, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Treblinka, became centres of industrialised murder... Their deaths were not collateral; they were the objective.' Genocide is not Israel's objective in Gaza. Israel is not marching civilians into gas chambers or firing wantonly at innocents. And despite misconceptions, Israel is not trying to starve the Gazan people either. The vast majority of civilian deaths have occurred because of Hamas' strategy of embedding itself among civilians, using homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques to store weapons and launch attacks on Israeli civilians, attempting to kill them merely for being Jewish. The fact of the matter is that if Israel could achieve its military objective of saving its hostages and eliminating Hamas as a threat to its people without harming a single civilian, that is what they would choose. A true genocide would have no such discernment between combatants and noncombatants. The Jews of Europe, the Tutsis of Rwanda, the Armenians, and the Bosnian Muslims were targeted because of who they are. The aim was their extermination. Amaral and other writers risk overextending the term 'genocide' and dulling its moral edge. It risks confusing true genocide with what is already a tragic, albeit necessary, war. To call Gaza a modern Auschwitz is not only historically incoherent, but devalues the unique horror of the Holocaust, where genocide was not a side effect. It was the mission. Civilian deaths in Gaza must not be dismissed. But they must also not be mislabelled. If we are to prevent future genocides, we must first be honest about what they are and what they are not. Comparing Gaza to Auschwitz reveals a deeper moral confusion. The Jews of Europe were powerless civilians systematically rounded up and exterminated solely for who they were. In Gaza, Israel is targeting Hamas, a heavily armed terrorist group that governs Gaza, started this war, and uses its people as shields. There is no moral equivalence between mass murder and tragic collateral damage. To pretend otherwise is to insult the memory of Holocaust victims and obscure the reality of today's war. To call Gaza another Auschwitz is not just a mistake. It is a betrayal of memory and a barrier to truth and peace. * Nicholas Woode-Smith is the the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard and a Senior Associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African. *** EDITOR'S NOTE: The claims made in this article reflect factually incorrect statements regarding Israel's ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, as ruled by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court's findings, and the ongoing and unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
