France calls for a ‘flood’ of Gaza aid as Israel continues blockade

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has told French lawmakers that France will co-host an international conference on Gaza reconstruction with Egypt.

“We have to flood the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid, and we have to start the reconstruction work,” Barrot said in the country’s National Assembly.

France and the United Kingdom, in conjunction with the US, will present a resolution to the United Nations Security Council seeking a UN mandate for a stabilisation force “that will be able to operate in Gaza very soon”, Barrot added.

Will the US veto that again?

WHO says medical supplies urgently need to get into Gaza

Aid organisations are prioritising moving aid trucks that have long been sitting just outside Gaza as the precarious ceasefire holds. The World Health Organization said it’s necessary to immediately bring in medication, hospital equipment, and fuel to Gaza’s dilapidated hospitals.

Heavy machinery to rebuild destroyed medical facilities is also urgently required, said Dr Hanan Balkhy, head of WHO’s eastern Mediterranean office.

“We’re having a whole lot of hope that the ceasefire … will be long lasting and that we can open up and do the work that we need to do with our other UN agencies and with our partners on the ground,” said Balkhy.

Ongoing WHO missions are now focused on picking up more trucks from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing and resupplying beleaguered hospitals.

Israel using Gaza aid as ‘political bargaining chip’

Xavier Abu Eid, a former Palestine Liberation Organization official, notes that Israel’s continued restrictions on aid entering Gaza are not new, but rather part of a longstanding policy.

“One may wonder, why would Israel care for security reasons if pasta or milk or any other food enters Gaza? Or medicines? Why wouldn’t it be just flooded with food and medicines?” Abu Eid asked.

“This is because Israel wants to keep control over Gaza [and] wants to continue to punish people in Gaza for political reasons,” he told Al Jazeera.

It is “extremely important” for the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt to be reopened to allow for unimpeded aid deliveries, Abu Eid said.

But he added that other crossings into and out of the Gaza Strip must also be used, including ones through which injured Palestinians can reach hospitals and other medical facilities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“The issue of Rafah, it’s extremely important. But once again, it is being used as a political bargaining chip by the Israeli occupation, just as other border crossings,” Abu Eid said.

Which is a war crime...

Hamas armed wing says will hand over two more Israeli captives’ bodies

The Qassam Brigades say the handover will happen at 10pm local time (19:00 GMT). So far, Hamas has returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased captives – along with an eighth corpse that Israel says is not of a former hostage.


Hamas says it handed over ‘all living’ Israeli captives, ‘bodies it can access’

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, released a short statement saying it has met its commitments under Trump’s Gaza plan as it pertains to Israeli captives in Gaza.

“The resistance has adhered to what was agreed upon and has handed over all the living prisoners it has and the bodies it can access,” it said. “As for the remaining bodies, they require significant efforts and special equipment to search for and retrieve them, and we are making great efforts to close this file.”

Israel says Red Cross to receive coffins of captives in Gaza

Captives’ bodies now in Israel being identified: Army

The captives’ bodies are being brought to Israel’s national forensic centre to undergo identification procedures, the Israeli military and the Shin Bet say. The army urged people to “await the official identification” of the remains.

PM Netanyahu says Israel won’t compromise over captives’ bodies

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that Hamas fulfil the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of bodies of captives who died in Gaza.

“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” Netanyahu said.

The ceasefire plan introduced by US President Donald Trump called for all captives – living and dead – to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased abductees and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Hamas and the Red Cross have said recovering the remains of dead captives was a challenge because of Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas has told mediators some are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.

Israel knew finding bodies in war-torn Gaza would be ‘incredibly difficult’

Hamas says it is doing its best to uphold its end of the ceasefire deal and honouring the agreement, but it’s certainly going to need assistance in trying to locate the remaining bodies of captives because Gaza is completely in ruins.

These are areas that have been largely turned into rubble. So Hamas says they are doing what they can, locating bodies to the best of their abilities, but they will need “specialised equipment”, they will need certain tools and assistance, to try and locate the rest of the remains.

Israeli officials knew this was certainly going to be the case.

Yes, that's why they agreed to the 'peace' plan as they knew it would never get past phase 1. The lost dead bodies, the remaining 'terror tunnels' for demilitarization, Hamas not going to give up their small arms they need for policing Gaza...

It's all a sick play. The only question is how much is Trump in on it, or is he that delusional.

And Trump is in on it:

On Hamas disarmament, Trump says: ‘If they don’t do it, we’ll do it’

The US president says his administration wants the Palestinian group to hand over its weapons, adding Hamas has “agreed to do it”.

“Now they have to do it. And if they don’t do it, we’ll do it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump also appeared to acknowledge that the return of Israeli captives’ bodies will be difficult, saying it’s a “gruesome process”, but Hamas is “looking for” the remains.

“They’re digging. They’re actually digging. There are areas where they’re digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies, and then they have to separate the bodies,” Trump said, adding some corpses are buried under rubble.

Israeli defence minister orders military to devise ‘comprehensive plan’ to defeat Hamas

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has instructed the Israeli military to draw up a “comprehensive plan” to completely defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip should the truce collapse.

The directive came during a meeting with senior military leaders, including Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.

According to The Times of Israel, citing Katz’s office, he instructed “the preparation of a plan for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza if it refuses to implement President Trump’s plan, and it becomes necessary to resume fighting”.

“If Hamas refuses to implement the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the US, will return to fighting and act to achieve the complete defeat of Hamas, change the reality in Gaza, and attain all the objectives of the war,” Katz’s office added.

Israel tells US it won’t move to next truce phase without captives’ bodies: Report

Israel has told the Trump administration the next phase of the ceasefire with Hamas cannot be entered into until all of the captives’ remains are returned, a news report says.

“Israeli officials acknowledge that a small number of the bodies will be hard to locate, but claim between 15 and 20 could be quickly returned,” US news outlet Axios reported.

The truce deal said 28 bodies are to be returned, but so far only nine have been brought back to Israel.

Hamas and the Red Cross have said it’s a difficult task to locate and remove the bodies of those kidnapped to Gaza because of the vast destruction inflicted by Israel’s military over the past two years.

“Both Israeli and US officials close to the process are concerned that elements within the Netanyahu government – particularly ultranationalist ministers Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir – will use the issue of hostage remains to undermine the deal [which they oppose] and push for the resumption of the war,” the news report said.

China, Palestine hold talks to ‘strengthen cooperation’

A high-level Palestinian delegation has met with Chinese officials in Beijing for political consultations, according to a statement posted on X by the State of Palestine.

The talks, held at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, mark the first official Palestinian visit to China in years.

China’s ambassador, Chen Decheng, welcomed the delegation and praised what he described as President Mahmoud Abbas’s “significant role” in the peace process. He noted Beijing has provided 35 projects to Palestine so far, along with financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA following Israel’s military assault on Gaza.

Decheng reiterated Beijing’s “firm position” in supporting the Palestinian cause, saying China would consider all Palestinian requests – including increased financial aid for UNRWA and support for Palestine’s accession to Sinosure, China’s state export credit insurance agency.

He also reaffirmed China’s rejection of “any violations of international law” by Israel, including settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Palestinian photographer reunites with family he thought were killed

Gaza photojournalist Shadi Abu Sido’s world shattered in Israeli detention when guards told him his wife and two children had been killed. “I got hysterical,” the Palestinian photographer said.

It wasn’t until his release on Monday, part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that halted two years of war, that he discovered his loved ones were alive.

His wife, Hanaa Bahlul, raced down the hallway of his family’s house in Khan Younis and leapt into his arms. “I heard her voice, I heard the voice of my children, I was astonished, it cannot be explained, they were alive. I saw my wife and children alive.”

Abu Sido was detained by Israeli troops at al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024. He was among the more than 1,900 Palestinians taken by Israeli forces who were released on Monday.

The state of Palestine says more than 10,000 are still held in Israeli prisons.

This gave me a good laugh, wtf. 

Is the global community ready to welcome Israel back?

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government adviser, says Israel is “eager” to normalise relations with its Western allies in light of the ceasefire deal reached in Gaza.

“The current narrative [in Israel] emphasises that, with the ceasefire, Israel is no longer isolating itself, that Hamas is contained, and that international opinion has swung in its favour,” Levy told Al Jazeera.

“In many respects, Israel and the Western political establishment share this goal of quieting public dissent.”

Levy stressed that while Western governments may be eager for rapprochement with Israel, their respective populations may not. “The cultural and public zeitgeist has shifted,” he said.

“Increasingly, people will not accept the narrative that ‘everything is fine’ or that government complicity in structural violence and genocide is acceptable.”

Yeah you signed some 'peace' agreement you're already breaking daily while drawing up plans to continue massacring more people.

UN ‘dealing with obstacles’ to get 190,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza

Senior UN officials say aid access through border crossings remains the main obstacle to allowing 190,000 metric tonnes of aid into Gaza.

“The key obstacles that we need to resolve [are] making sure that we have sufficient crossings. We have sufficient supplies. We need to just make sure that the access is facilitated,” said Samer Abdeljaber, the World Food Programme’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

“We need to make sure there is law and order in Gaza to make sure that our teams can move freely, and the trucks flow inside the compound.”

UN relief chief Tom Fletcher said teams have been working in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh “to get the political agreements in place … and ensure we’ve got that really strong international solidarity for what we do”.

“We’ve waited so long for this moment,” Fletcher said. “We have 190,000 metric tonnes on the borders, and we’re trying to get those borders open. But we’re also right now dealing with obstacles that we face.”

Gaza ceasefire to be welcomed, but ‘misguided to call it peace’

Tony Karon, the editorial lead at AJ+, explains why Trump’s Gaza plan – despite being billed as a “peace plan” – doesn’t actually offer peace for Palestinians in the enclave.

Instead, he says it marks a pause in the violence and a return to Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Trump’s “peace plan” doesn’t offer peace for Palestinians in Gaza. It’s just a pause in the violence and a return to occupation and apartheid. AJ+ Editorial Lead @TonyKaron unpacks. pic.twitter.com/i936Q7uuIA

— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 15, 2025

Pro-Palestine demonstrators rally outside Israeli consulate in Spain

Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows protesters gathering outside the Israeli consulate in Barcelona as part of a general strike called by major labour and student unions across Spain to denounce the genocide in Gaza.

Demonstrators set rubbish containers on fire, creating barricades between themselves and police forces, who later charged at the crowds to disperse them. Videos circulating online also show some protesters launching fireworks towards the consulate.

The strike, which includes more than 200 demonstrations nationwide, was organised to denounce what unions have called a “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Protesters have demanded that Spain sever all relations with Israel, drawing comparisons with international campaigns that helped end apartheid in South Africa.

Main events on October 15th

• Bodies of 14 slain Palestinians were brought to Gaza hospitals since dawn: three killed in Israeli attacks today, eight recovered from earlier strikes, and three who succumbed to previous injuries.
• Israel handed over the bodies of 45 more Palestinians through the Red Cross, with a forensics official saying some showed signs of “torture and execution”.
• Hamas’s Qassam Brigades said it has fulfilled its commitments under President Trump’s Gaza plan by handing over all living Israeli captives and the bodies of those it could “access”.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Hamas return the bodies of the remaining captives, and Israel told the Trump administration the next phase of the ceasefire deal can’t proceed until then.
• Trump acknowledged the return of captives’ bodies will be difficult, noting Hamas is “looking for” the remains – “They’re digging, they’re actually digging”.
• The Palestinian Authority says it’s ready to run the crucial Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt as Israel continues to apply restrictions on aid entering the famine-hit Strip.

Gaza City faces ‘catastrophic reality’ after Israel’s war

Gaza City authorities say Israel’s offensive to seize the urban centre destroyed more than 80 percent of its infrastructure since October 2023, calling for the immediate establishment of a land, sea and air bridge to deliver heavy equipment and humanitarian aid.

The municipality launched a campaign to remove vast mountains of rubble and to reopen main streets, spokesman Husni Mehanna told the Anadolu news agency. “The initiative requires urgent funding of $140m,” he said.

Mehanna said the municipality is working with Qatar’s Gaza Reconstruction Committee to facilitate the return of displaced residents, despite having only one bulldozer after most of its equipment was destroyed.

Entire Gaza City neighbourhoods are without access to water after Israeli strikes destroyed 56 water wells and damaged dozens more.

More than 250,000 tonnes of solid waste are piled up across residential areas, he added, warning of an impending environmental and health disaster if it isn’t urgently removed.

_{An aerial view of the vast destruction in Gaza City}

Big blow for Trump as Netanyahu breaks Gaza peace deal signed in Egypt

In a setback to Donald Trump, his recently-signed Gaza peace deal is on the verge of collapse after reports of a major violation by the IDF emerged. Rifat Jawaid looks at the unceremonious treatment meted out to someone who claims to be the most powerful president on earth. It would be important to see how Trump responds to such an act by the Netanyahu government just hours after he called the Gaza peace deal the first such development in 3000 years.

Ceasefire Is OVER: Israel Killing, Bombing And Starving Gaza

Ex-Israeli negotiator EXPOSES Trump's Gaza plan

A former Israeli negotiator told Declassified that there needs to be 'accountability' for the genocide in Gaza before serious negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis can take place.

We spoke to Daniel Levy - currently director of the U.S./Middle East Project - just as Donald Trump announced that negotiations for peace in Gaza have reached 'phase two' after an exchange of Palestinian and Israeli captives took place this week.

Levy also said that Trump's peace summit and possible appointment of Tony Blair as administrator in Gaza are distractions designed to sideline the popular movements against the genocide.