The Latest: Major media say Gaza staff face starvation, as US envoy holds ceasefire talks

Four leading news organizations said Thursday that their journalists in Gaza are facing the threat of starvation as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on, while top U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff was to meet with key negotiators from the Middle East for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal and the release of hostages.

The media outlets’ joint statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory.

“For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering,” said the joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC.

Also Thursday, Hamas confirmed it had sent its latest ceasefire proposal to Israel, with an Israeli official calling it “workable,” although no details were provided. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

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’s the latest:

The 10 women told The Associated Press that they waited for hours at the U.S.-run aid site as American contractors told them to move from place to place.

The women said contractors fired pepper spray at the crowds and that in the end they didn’t receive any aid.

“They terrified us in ways unimaginable,” said Azza Abu Taha, a mother looking after six family members. “I just want a bag of flour for me and my children.”

Umm Ibrahim Anshasi said she arrived at 9 a.m. as instructed. “They tell you to wait, then they tell you go out,” she said. “We came just to be insulted.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation acknowledged that a “limited amount of aid” was distributed at the site where the pepper spray was used. It said that “overall, the effort was a major success.”

Ten women who were at the site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, described a chaotic scene 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.

More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces while approaching the GHF sites since they opened in May, according to witnesses, local health officials and the United Nations human rights office.

The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its contractors have only occasionally used pepper spray or fired into the air to prevent stampedes.

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

In a post on social media, Ottolenghi said he’s 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.

Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s office recalled the negotiating team back to Israel in light of Hamas’ response Thursday morning.

In a brief statement, the prime minister’s office expressed its appreciation for the efforts of U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and mediators Qatar and Egypt, but gave no further details.

Earlier Thursday, Israel said Hamas’ latest response was “workable.”

An official with knowledge of the Gaza ceasefire talks said Hamas had submitted a “positive response” through Qatari mediators.

“The Hamas response has now been passed to the Israeli side, and there is growing optimism that the gaps are narrowing and a deal can be reached,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes talks.

The official said senior officials from the U.S. and Qatar were set to meet in Italy later Thursday to discuss the progress. There were no further details.

– By Josef Federman in Jerusalem

Gaza’s Health Ministry said 48 Palestinians have died of malnutrition this 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 the Hamas militant group in Gaza after its rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

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

Of the 113 that died of malnutrition in Gaza since 2023, 81 were children, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Since Israel’s aid blockade in March, Gaza’s humanitarian situation has become dire, alarming international organizations. The United Nations World Food Program has said 100,000 women and children are facing famine levels of starvation.

The International Rescue Community said their teams in Gaza have reported a surge in cases of children being rushed to the hospital due to malnutrition.

“Their small bodies are shutting down – they can’t breathe, their immune systems are collapsing, and they are highly vulnerable to infection,” IRC’s acting director in the occupied Palestinian Territories, Scott Lea, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Their lives are hanging by a thread.”

Israel’s military said militants had fired a rocket that landed close to an aid distribution site in southern Gaza.

In a statement Thursday, the military said militants in the city of Khan Younis had fired a rocket that landed 250 meters (820 feet) from an aid site in Rafah. The military did not say if the rocket strike injured anyone.

The aid site is run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American organization distributing aid in Gaza which launched operations in May.

The U.S. and Israel seek to replace the traditional U.N.-led aid distribution system in Gaza, asserting that Hamas militants siphon off supplies. The U.N. denies the allegation.

Indonesia has strongly condemned the Israeli Parliament’s symbolic motion to annex the occupied West Bank.

In a statement Thursday by Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country reiterated that Israel has no legitimate sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territory and that such actions do not alter the legal status of the territory.

“This move constitutes an act of annexation, violating the fundamental principle of non-acquisition of territory by force,” the statement said.

“We reaffirm our support for the establishment and sovereign State of Palestine within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the Two-State Solution.”

The declarative motion, passed Wednesday by the Israeli Parliament, or Knesset, has no direct legal implications, although it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates.

The Southeast Asian nation urged the United Nations Security Council and the international community to take concrete measures to halt what it termed Israel’s illegal actions, saying it aims to make its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory permanent.

Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded Thursday when a car rammed into a bus stop near the central coastal city of Netanya, the military said. The driver fled the scene, prompting a police manhunt.

Two soldiers were moderately wounded and another six were lightly wounded in the attack. The military did not identify the attacker or provide further details.

Palestinian militants have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip. Israel has launched major military operations in the occupied West Bank, and there has been a spike in settler violence against Palestinians there.

At least five Palestinians were killed in central Gaza late Wednesday, according to the Aqsa Hospital morgue that received the bodies 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.

The Israeli military, which has expanded operations in the area in the last few days, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Four leading news organizations said Thursday their journalists in Gaza are facing the threat of starvation as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on.

“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” said a joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC. “For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”

The statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory.

Israel has barred international media from entering Gaza independently throughout the 21-month war.

Top U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to head to Italy on Thursday to meet top Israeli negotiator Ron Dermer and discuss the ceasefire deal on the table, according to Israeli and U.S. officials.

For Israel, sending Dermer – a close Netanyahu confidant – to the meeting marks a show of seriousness in reaching a deal.

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.

Hamas earlier Thursday submitted a response to the latest ceasefire proposal which an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, billed as “workable.”

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. Palestinian authorities say Musallet was beaten to death by Israeli settlers while visiting family in the West Bank.

Violence has spiraled 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.”

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.

– By Julia Frankel in Jerusalem

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 spiraled 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.