Trump blames Hamas for Gaza ceasefire collapse

AFP | Washington

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US President Donald Trump accused Hamas yesterday of not wanting to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza as Israel said it would explore “alternative options” to rescue hostages after negotiations had collapsed.

An Israeli official meanwhile said air drops of aid would resume soon over the Gaza Strip, where aid groups warned of surging numbers of malnourished children as international concern mounted over the deepening humanitarian crisis after more than 21 months of war.

After US and Israeli negotiators quit indirect talks with Hamas in Qatar, Trump said that “it was was too bad. Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal. I think they want to die.”

The US president argued that the Palestinian group, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war, was not ready to hand over the remaining captives held in Gaza because “they know what happens after you get the final hostages”.

His special envoy Steve Witkoff accused Hamas of not “acting in good faith” in the negotiations that ended on Thursday.

A senior Hamas official in turn accused Witkoff of distorting the reality of the talks and walking back on agreements that had been reached between the parties.

Witkoff ’s “negative statements... run completely counter to the context in which the last negotiations were held”, Bassem Naim told AFP, saying the US envoy was looking to “serve the Israeli position”.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “together with our US allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home, end Hamas’s terror rule, and secure lasting peace for Israel and our region.”

Witkoff similarly said Washington would “consider alternative options” on Gaza, without elaborating on what they could entail.

‘Carnage and famine’

More than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the United Nations said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition.

Britain, France and Germany prepared to hold an “emergency call” yesterday on the deepening humanitarian crisis and to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need”, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday slammed the international community for turning a blind eye to the suffering of starving Palestinians, calling it a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience”.

Guterres said while he had repeatedly condemned Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, “nothing can justify the explosion of death and destruction since.”

Italy’s top diplomat Antonio Tajani said Rome cannot accept “carnage and famine” in the Palestinian territory, criticising Israel but stating that his government was not ready to recognise a Palestinian state, like France plans to do.

President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on Thursday that France would formally recognise the State of Palestine in September drew a furious rebuke from Israel but was dubbed a “victory” by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.