SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Hamas has responded to a U.S. ceasefire proposal in Gaza that includes the release of around half of its remaining living hostages. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff proposed the deal this week, and Israel accepted. This latest development comes amidst a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The United Nations has called Gaza the hungriest place on Earth. Israel continues to restrict humanitarian aid into the enclave, and this week, it introduced a new distribution system, one run by a U.S.-backed private company. For more on all of this, we go to NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Welcome.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Thank you.
DETROW: Let's start with that proposal. What do we know about Hamas' response?
AL-SHALCHI: So we know that Hamas said they've agreed to release 10 living and 18 deceased hostages. That's in exchange to Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners. We don't know how many yet. And this is all meant to happen during a 60-day ceasefire. You know, Hamas has really been under pressure to accept a deal by mediators, including Egypt, Qatar and the United States and by Palestinians in Gaza, who are desperate for a ceasefire.
DETROW: Perpetual question then - is it a done deal?
AL-SHALCHI: Nope, definitely not. A Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly told us that the militant group has asked for a number of demands. That includes the timing of the release of the hostages. You see, Hamas wants a guarantee that Israel will hold to the 60 days of the ceasefire, so it doesn't want to release all the 10 hostages at the same time. Hamas also wants guarantees for a permanent end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the entry of aid. And Israel is framing all of this as Hamas rejecting the proposal.
DETROW: Let's get into the other big development I talked about. Tell us about this new system of food being delivered in Gaza and this U.S.-backed group that's running it.
AL-SHALCHI: Yeah, so we just need to really understand that Gaza has been under a total blockade of aid since March 2. No food, medicine or any supplies at all have gone in since then. So after intense international pressure, Israel started allowing a trickle of aid by the U.N. and this new distribution system. This new system is not under the control of the United Nations, which Israel has long accused of anti-Israel bias. And actually, the U.N. has refused to participate in it anyway. Israel also says that Hamas steals the aid, but the U.N. says there's been no major diversion.
So this group was just formed, and it's called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or GHF. It's run by American security contractors, and it's been unclear on who funds it. We've asked several times, but haven't received an answer. GHF began setting up a few aid distribution sites on Monday, and they're actually all in dangerous combat zones. And before, when the U.N. was in charge, there were hundreds of aid centers.
DETROW: How did this rollout go?
AL-SHALCHI: Well, according to people on the ground that we spoke to, it's been chaos. We spoke to one man in Gaza who said that as soon as the GHF workers opened the metal fences where the aid was being distributed, hundreds of people stormed it in desperation and started grabbing as many meal boxes as they could. Another man we reached by phone, 55-year-old Iyad al-Jaloos, said he walked more than 7 miles to and from the GHF site, but he says it was impossible to get anything.
IYAD AL-JALOOS: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Swarms of people," he said, "huge crowds, people jostling and stomping on each other, people gasping for breath. Jaloos said that there were Israeli military tanks in the distance while the contractors looked on. And also the rollout hasn't really been safe. There have been shots fired, and people around the sites have seen injured people being taken to the hospital, and Gaza health officials have reported deadly gunfire.
DETROW: What has it been like in other areas of Gaza?
AL-SHALCHI: Well, Israel is continuing to order these huge evacuations - orders, including new ones on Thursday for much of the north of Gaza. Of course, airstrikes continue killing hundreds of Palestinians this week, and health officials say that children have died from malnutrition. The U.N.'s Palestinian ambassador delivered a speech this week, and he broke down in tears as he described Palestinian children in Gaza.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RIYAD MANSOUR: Images of mothers embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair, (crying) talking to them. It's unbearable.
AL-SHALCHI: I mean, you can really hear the intense emotion in his voice.
DETROW: Yeah. I want to go back to something you said earlier, though. Tell us more about why the United Nations and other experienced aid organizations are not cooperating with GHF.
AL-SHALCHI: Well, the U.N. says that this system is violating humanitarian principles and breaks international law. That's because it says the GHF system will, quote, "weaponize aid for Israel's political purposes." The Israeli government has said it wants to move all Palestinians to the south of Gaza, and some Israeli officials have said they want to displace them totally out of Gaza. The U.N. says this aid system also would help do that because Israel controls who receives the aid and where it's set up. And that would end up possibly emptying out large parts of the territory, and the U.N. says this constitutes criteria for ethnic cleansing.
DETROW: That is NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much.
AL-SHALCHI: You're very welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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