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SvennoJ on 18 May 2025
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What’s happened in Gaza since Israel abandoned truce deal?

  • March 2: Israel blocks the entry of all aid into Gaza after Hamas rejects its effort to change the terms of the ceasefire deal agreed to in January.
  • March 18: Israel abandons the ceasefire and bombards Gaza, killing more than 400 Palestinians, many of them children, in a single day.
  • April 25: The World Food Programme (WFP) says its food stocks in Gaza are completely depleted.
  • May 3: Authorities in Gaza say at least 57 Palestinians have starved to death since Israel imposed its total blockade.
  • May 5: Netanyahu announces the expansion of the Gaza war and says Palestinians in the enclave will be moved, as the military plans to call up tens of thousands of reservists.
  • May 9: The US says a new body – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – is being established to distribute aid in the enclave, bypassing the system run by the UN and other agencies.
  • May 12: Hamas frees US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander after direct talks with the US, while the world’s leading hunger monitor warns that the entire population of Gaza is facing critical risk of famine.
  • May 16: Medics say Israeli forces have killed 250 Palestinians in Gaza in less than 48 hours as the Israeli military begins its expanded operation, dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots”.
  • May 17: A new round of ceasefire negotiations begins between Israel and Hamas.

Trump envoy personally promised to lift Gaza blockade in exchange for US-Israeli captive, Hamas official says

Basem Naim has told Drop Site, a US news outlet, that the Palestinian group received a direct commitment from Steve Witkoff that the Trump administration would compel Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza two days after the release of US-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander.

Naim, who is a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said that Witkoff also promised that Trump would make a public call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for negotiations aimed at achieving a “permanent ceasefire”.

Naim said the agreement was: “If we release [Alexander], Trump will speak out thanking Hamas for its gesture, obliging Israel on the second day to open the borders and allow aid to come into Gaza, and [Trump would] call for an immediate ceasefire and to go for negotiations to end the war.”

“He did nothing of this,” the official added. “They didn’t violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.”

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

Alexander, who is a US citizen and an Israeli soldier, was released on Monday. Since then, Israel has intensified its air raids on Gaza, killing more than 300 Palestinians since Thursday. It has launched a new ground offensive, dubbed Gideon’s Chariots, aimed at seizing and controlling the Strip.

Israeli captives’ mothers urge Trump to put pressure on Netanyahu: Report

Anat Angerst, Vicky Cohen, and Herut Nimrodi have denounced Netanyahu’s government, saying it has no concrete plan to return their sons to safety, according to the Israeli daily Maariv.

The three women are the mothers of Israeli soldiers Matan Angerst, Nimrod Cohen and Tamir Nimrodi, respectively, who are among some 58 captives who remain in Gaza.

“We are all anxious and worried about our loved ones who are still in captivity, and are very frustrated that the Israeli government has no plan for how to return them,” they told Maariv.

The three women urged Trump to put more pressure on Israel “to end the war and reach an agreement” that will free the captives. “This is a political war, a war that was very justified at the beginning, but right now it has no purpose,” they told Maariv.