Gaza’s vital community kitchens may soon shut, halt free meals

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to bring back all hostages, “living and dead,” as rescuers in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people.

Netanyahu’s remarks came after a Palestinian source said that mediators proposed a 70-day ceasefire and the release of 10 Israeli hostages alongside some Palestinian prisoners, though US envoy Steve Witkoff later said Hamas had not agreed to a proposed deal.

“If we don’t achieve it today, we will achieve it tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. We are not giving up,” Netanyahu said of the duty to free the captives.

“We intend to bring them all back, the living and the dead,” he added, but made no mention of a proposed deal.

His remarks came after a Hamas source said on Monday that the group had accepted a ceasefire proposal that would see 10 captives released.

A spokesman for Witkoff nonetheless told AFP that he disputed Hamas’s claim that the group had agreed to his proposed deal and quoted the envoy as saying “What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable.”

Fighting meanwhile raged in Gaza, where civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that an early-morning Israeli strike on the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school, where displaced people were sheltering, killed “at least 33, with dozens injured, mostly children.”

The Israeli military said it had “struck key terrorists who were operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control center embedded” in the area, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”

Another strike killed at least 19 people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Bassal said.

Israel has stepped up a renewed offensive to destroy Hamas, drawing international condemnation as aid trickles in following a blockade since early March that has sparked severe food and medical shortages.

It has also triggered international criticism, with European and Arab leaders meeting in Spain calling for an end to the “inhumane” and “senseless” war, while humanitarian groups said the trickle of aid was not nearly enough.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an arms embargo on Israel.

He also called for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza “massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel,” describing the territory as humanity’s “open wound.”

In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz voiced unusually strong criticism of Israel, saying: “I no longer understand what the Israeli army is now doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal.”

The impact on Gazan civilians “can no longer be justified,” he added.

Nevertheless, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin would continue selling weapons to Israel.

The Israeli military said on Monday that over “the past 48 hours, the (air force) struck over 200 targets throughout the Gaza Strip.”

It also said it had detected three projectiles launched from Gaza toward communities in Israel Monday, as the country prepared to celebrate Jerusalem Day, an annual event marking its capture of the city’s eastern sector in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

“Two projectiles fell in the Gaza Strip and one additional projectile was intercepted,” it said.

Later on Monday, it issued an evacuation order for areas of Khan Yunis, saying they had been the site of rocket launches.

Israel last week partially eased an aid blockade on Gaza that had exacerbated widespread shortages of food and medicine.

COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that coordinates civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said that “170 trucks... carrying humanitarian aid including food, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical drugs were transferred” into Gaza on Monday.

While Israel has restricted aid into Gaza, the war has made growing food next to impossible, with the UN saying on Monday just five percent of Gaza’s farmland was now useable.

A top World Health Organization official deplored Monday that none of the agency’s trucks with medical aid had been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since Israel ended its blockade.

For more than 11 weeks, “there has been no WHO trucks entering into Gaza for medical care support,” the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional director Hanan Balkhy said, adding that “the situation is devastating.”

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that at least 3,822 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,977, mostly civilians.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.

DAMASCUS: The Jordan Chamber of Commerce has used a visit to the Syrian Arab Republic to lay the groundwork for a renewed economic partnership, with a focus on deepening cooperation and supporting Syria’s reconstruction and economic recovery.

During an official visit to Damascus on Monday, Senator Khalil Al-Haj Tawfiq, head of the Jordanian delegation, said his country was mobilizing its capabilities and private sector expertise to aid Syria’s economic development, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The JCC held talks with the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce to explore collaboration across key sectors, including trade, transport, logistics, agriculture, industry, food, banking and shipping.

The two sides agreed to draft a comprehensive road map to guide future cooperation, with an emphasis on investment, joint ventures and reconstruction initiatives.

“Our delegation seeks to launch a new phase of economic cooperation that serves both countries’ interests,” Tawfiq said.

“We are committed to facilitating trade and transport and enhancing private sector engagement to support Syria’s path forward.”

The Jordanian delegation, comprising leaders from the commercial and service sectors, will also hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and business representatives over three days.

The talks aim to revive the Jordanian-Syrian Joint Business Council and set the stage for an upcoming economic forum in Amman.

FSCC President Alaa Ali welcomed Jordan’s support, highlighting the strong historic ties between the two countries, the report said.

He called for boosting product competitiveness and reevaluating trade agreements, particularly in light of recent moves to ease international sanctions on Syria.

Ali praised the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Jordanian and Syrian governments to establish a Higher Coordination Council, describing it as a vital step toward enhanced economic integration.

The visit was coordinated with Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jordanian Embassy in Damascus and marks a significant step toward rebuilding economic bridges between the two neighbors.