Main events on May 31st
- Hamas said it filed its response to a US-backed proposal for a Gaza truce deal, refuting Israeli claims it rejected it, but saying it still seeks “a guarantee” of a permanent ceasefire.
- Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy for the Middle East, said Hamas’s response “is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.
- Hamas official Basem Naim says Witkoff’s proposal does not guarantee a 60-day temporary ceasefire or increased deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
- Israel’s military ordered “all residents” of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and Abasan to evacuate immediately after rockets were fired.
- Foreign ministers of Arab countries who planned to visit the occupied West Bank to discuss a state of Palestine condemned Israel’s decision to block their trip.
- The Israeli army said it killed Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Sinwar in a May 13 attack, confirming Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement this week.
Witkoff statement shows US ‘solidly’ behind Israel: Ex-US diplomat
Former US diplomat Robert Hunter says Witkoff made his statement on the US ceasefire proposal as quickly as he did, in part, in order to demonstrate “the Trump administration is solidly in support of the Israeli position”.
“I think Trump is getting a little frustrated because he’s trying to announce a huge success for himself and the negotiating positions of the two sides – Israel and Hamas – are still very far apart,” Hunter told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.
Still, Hunter noted that Trump has made clear he’s in Israel’s corner by “in effect giving a greenlight to Israel to do whatever it wants militarily, including with American weaponry”.
The US president also has been “giving Israel free play in Gaza”, Hunter added, because he is hoping to reach a nuclear deal with Iran – something the Israeli government is opposed to.
A coalition of conscience needed to stop genocide in Gaza
Eight decades after the Holocaust, another genocide is unfolding – this time with Palestinian children as both victims and witnesses of ethnic cleansing. Each of these children carries a harrowing story the world needs to hear. One day, we may read their accounts in memoirs – if they survive long enough to write them.
But the international community must not wait that long. It must confront the suffering of these children now. That is why we gave children in Gaza a platform to ask the world a searing question: “Why are you silent?”
