Hamas denies rejecting US-led Gaza deal as Israel confirms it killed Mohammed Sinwar – as it happened

• Hamas said it has not rejected a ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, a senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, told Reuters. Naim said Israel’s response to Witkoff’s proposal was incompatible with what the group agreed on, adding that the US envoy’s position towards the group was “unfair” and showed “complete bias” towards Israel. Witkoff said Hamas’s response to the US’s ceasefire proposal is “totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.

• Hamas said it had submitted its response on a ceasefire proposal presented by Witkoff to mediators. The Palestinian group said in a statement that under the deal, it will release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel’s release of a number of Palestinian prisoners.

• Israel’s military has confirmed it killed Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Sinwar, on 13 May, Reuters reports. The IDF said the airstrike that killed Sinwar also killed Mohammad Sabaneh, the commander of Hamas’s Rafah brigade, and Mahdi Quara, the commander of Hamas’s South Khan Younis battalion. The Israeli army said they were “operating in an underground command and control centre, under the European hospital in Khan Younis, deliberately endangering the civilian population in and around the hospital”.

• Palestinians in the Gaza Strip blocked and off-loaded dozens of food trucks, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Saturday, as desperation mounts after Israel’s months-long blockade. The WFP said that 77 trucks carrying aid, mostly flour, were stopped by hungry people who took the food before the trucks were able to reach their destination. The WFP said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high despite the food aid that is entering now.

• Israel has said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated”, as Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close”. On Friday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said Hamas must agree to a ceasefire proposal presented by the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, or be destroyed, after the group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands. Hamas said it was still considering the text.

• Gaza is “the hungriest place on earth”, according to the UN, which has warned that the Palestinian territory’s entire population is at risk of famine. Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), also said the mission to deliver aid was “in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”.

• Israel is setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza that is making the whole world more dangerous, Norway’s international development minister has warned. “For the last one and a half years we have seen very low respect for international law in the war in Gaza and in recent months it is worse than ever before,” Åsmund Aukrust said. “So for the Norwegian government it is very important to protest against this, to condemn this very clear violation.”

• The foreign ministers of five Arab countries who had planned to visit the occupied West Bank this weekend on Saturday condemned Israel’s decision to block their plans. Ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been expected to take part alongside Turkey and the secretary-general of the Arab League. Israel had announced late on Friday that it would not cooperate, effectively blocking the visit as it controls the territory’s borders and airspace.

• The Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours. It said three people were shot by Israeli gunfire early on Saturday morning in the southern city of Rafah. Three other people were killed, parents and a child, when their car was struck in Gaza City, it added.

• A convoy of tractors that set out from kibbutzim across Israel arrived at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling for the return of hostages held in Gaza. The protest was organised by the Kibbutz Movement and the Hostages Families Forum.

• Israeli airstrikes have struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have said, and reportedly one civilian has been killed, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month. “A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.

• Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday and called on Tehran to urgently change course and comply with the agency’s investigation. The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was seen by the Associated Press (AP), says that as of 17 May, Iran had amassed 408.6kg of uranium enriched up to 60%.

• Israel said Saturday’s IAEA report was a clear warning sign that Iran is “totally determined to complete its nuclear weapons programme”, according to a statement from the office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

After Israel’s military confirmed it had killed Hamas’s Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar earlier this month, its defence minister, Israel Katz, wrote on X: “Israel’s long arm will reach all those responsible for the murders and atrocities of October 7th, wherever they may be, near or far, until their complete elimination.”

Katz also issued a warning to one of Sinwar’s potential successors as Hamas’s Gaza chief.

“Azz al-Din al-Haddad in Gaza and Khalil al-Hayya abroad – and all their partners in crime – you’re next in line,” he added.

The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said that Hamas was responsible for the continuation of the war in Gaza by refusing to release hostages and disarm.

Earlier, Hamas said it had submitted its response containing some amendments to a proposal presented by Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to mediators.

Hamas said it has not rejected a ceasefire proposal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, a senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, told Reuters.

Naim said Israel’s response to Witkoff’s proposal was incompatible with what the group agreed on, adding that the US envoy’s position towards the group was “unfair” and showed “complete bias” towards Israel.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said: “While Israel has agreed to the updated Witkoff outline for the release of our hostages, Hamas continues to adhere to its refusal … Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas’s response to the US’s ceasefire proposal is “totally unacceptable and only takes us backward”.

The IDF said the airstrike that killed Mohammed Sinwar, head of Hamas’s military wing, on 13 May also killed Mohammad Sabaneh, commander of Hamas’s Rafah brigade, and Mahdi Quara, commander of Hamas’s South Khan Younis battalion.

The Israeli army said they were “operating in an underground command and control centre, under the European hospital in Khan Younis, deliberately endangering the civilian population in and around the hospital”.

Mohammad Sinwar was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month. Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had been killed.

Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.

He was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian militant group’s deceased head and leader of the October 2023 attack on Israel.

Israel’s military has confirmed it killed Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Sinwar, on 13 May, Reuters reports.

A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among the amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas.

Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.

Earlier, the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza said 60 people had died and a further 284 had been injured in the past 24 hours.

That does not include numbers from hospitals located in the North Gaza Strip governorate because of the difficulty of accessing the area, it added.

That brings the death toll to 54,381 since the beginning of the war on 7 October 2023. A further 124,054 have been injured.