The al-Ahli Stadium, which has been converted into a makeshift refuge for Palestinians fleeing the Israeli onslaught, became the site of another massacre on Wednesday.

“I only had what I had in my hand. I left with nothing,” Najwa, a displaced woman from Gaza City, told Al Jazeera. “We are frightened. Transportation is expensive.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas.

Six people familiar with the matter confirmed the talks to The Associated Press. It’s unclear how far the talks have advanced, but if implemented, the plans would amount to transferring people from one war-ravaged land at risk of famine to another, and raise human rights concerns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population through what Netanyahu refers to as “voluntary migration.” Israel has floated similar resettlement proposals with other African nations.

Palestinians, rights groups, and much of the international community have rejected the proposals as a blueprint for forcible expulsion in violation of international law.

For South Sudan, such a deal could help it build closer ties to Israel, now the almost unchallenged military power in the Middle East. It is also a potential inroad to Trump, who broached the idea of resettling Gaza’s population in February but appears to have backed away in recent months.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment and South Sudan’s foreign minister did not respond to questions about the talks. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on private diplomatic conversations.

Egypt opposes proposals to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza
Joe Szlavik, the founder of a U.S. lobbying firm working with South Sudan, said he was briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks. He said an Israeli delegation plans to visit the country to look into the possibility of setting up camps for Palestinians there. No known date has been set for the visit. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the visit.

Szlavik said Israel would likely pay for makeshift camps.

Edmund Yakani, who heads a South Sudanese civil society group, said he had also spoken to South Sudanese officials about the talks. Four additional officials with knowledge of the discussions confirmed talks were taking place on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Two of the officials, both from Egypt, told AP they’ve known for months about Israel’s efforts to find a country to accept Palestinians, including its contact with South Sudan. They said they’ve been lobbying South Sudan against taking the Palestinians.

Egypt is deeply opposed to plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza, with which it shares a border, fearing an influx of refugees into its own territory.

The AP previously reported on similar talks initiated by Israel and the U.S. with Sudan and Somalia, countries that are also grappling with war and hunger, and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland. The status of those discussions is not known.

‘Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally’
Szlavik, who’s been hired by South Sudan to improve its relations with the United States, said the U.S. is aware of the discussions with Israel but is not directly involved.

South Sudan wants the Trump administration to lift a travel ban on the country and remove sanctions from some South Sudanese elites, said Szlavik. It has already accepted eight individuals swept up in the administration’s mass deportations, in what may have been an effort to curry favor.

The Trump administration has pressured a number of countries to help facilitate deportations.

“Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally, financial gain and diplomatic security it can get,” said Peter Martell, a journalist and author of a book about the country, “First Raise a Flag.”

Israel’s Mossad spy agency provided aid to the South Sudanese during their decades-long civil war against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum ahead of independence in 2011, according to the book.

The State Department, asked if there was any quid pro quo with South Sudan, said decisions on the issuing of visas are made “in a way that prioritizes upholding the highest standards for U.S. national security, public safety, and the enforcement of our immigration laws.”

From one hunger-stricken conflict zone to another
Many Palestinians might want to leave Gaza, at least temporarily, to escape the war and a hunger crisis bordering on famine. But they have roundly rejected any permanent resettlement from what they see as an integral part of their national homeland.

They fear that Israel will never allow them to return, and that a mass departure would allow it to annex Gaza and reestablish Jewish settlements there, as called for by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.

Still, even those Palestinians who want to leave are unlikely to take their chances in South Sudan, among the world’s most unstable and conflict-ridden countries.

South Sudan has struggled to recover from a civil war that broke out after independence, and which killed nearly 400,000 people and plunged pockets of the country into famine. The oil-rich country is plagued by corruption and relies on international aid to help feed its 11 million people – a challenge that has only grown since the Trump administration made sweeping cuts to foreign assistance.

A peace deal reached seven years ago has been fragile and incomplete, and the threat of war returned when the main opposition leader was placed under house arrest this year.

Palestinians in particular could find themselves unwelcome. The long war for independence from Sudan pitted the mostly Christian and animist south against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.

Yakani, of the civil society group, said South Sudanese would need to know who is coming and how long they plan to stay, or there could be hostilities due to the “historical issues with Muslims and Arabs.”

“South Sudan should not become a dumping ground for people,” he said. “And it should not accept to take people as negotiating chips to improve relations.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to propose fully reoccupying the Gaza Strip when he meets his security cabinet, Israeli media say.
"The die has been cast. We're going for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip – and defeating Hamas," local journalists quote a senior official as saying.
Responding to reports that the army chief and other military leaders oppose the plan, the unnamed official said: "If that doesn't work for the chief of staff, he should resign."
The families of hostages fear such plans could endanger their loved ones, with 20 out of 50 believed to be alive in Gaza, while polls suggest three in four Israelis instead favour a ceasefire deal to return them.
Many of Israel's close allies would also condemn such a move as they push for an end to the war and action to alleviate a humanitarian crisis.
Within Israel, hundreds of retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, issued a joint letter to US President Donald Trump on Monday, calling for him to pressure Netanyahu to end the war.
One of the signatories, ex-domestic intelligence agency chief Ami Ayalon, told the BBC that further military action would be futile.
"From the military point of view, [Hamas] is totally destroyed. On the other hand, as an ideology it is getting more and more power among the Palestinian people, within the Arab street around us, and also in the world of Islam.
"So the only way to defeat Hamas's ideology is to present a better future."
The latest developments come after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage deal broke down and Palestinian armed groups released three videos of two Israeli hostages looking weak and emaciated.
The footage of Rom Blaslavski and Evyatar David, both kidnapped from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023, has shocked and appalled Israelis. David is shown digging what he says is his own grave in an underground tunnel.
There has been some speculation that the latest media announcements are a pressure tactic to try to force Hamas into a new deal.
Israel's military says it already has operational control of 75% of Gaza. But under the proposed plan it would occupy the entire territory – moving into areas where more than two million Palestinians are now concentrated.
It is unclear what that would mean for civilians and for the operations of the UN and other aid groups. About 90% of Gaza's 2.1 million people have been displaced, some repeatedly, and are living in overcrowded and dire conditions. Humanitarian groups and UN officials say many are starving, accusing Israel of impeding the distribution of crucial aid.
Israel meanwhile says it will allow local businesspeople in Gaza to restart entry of some goods as part of efforts to improve conditions there. Approved items include baby food, fruit and vegetables and hygiene products. Private imports were previously stopped because of claims that Hamas was benefitting.
The Israeli military has previously held back from taking over some areas of Gaza, including central parts, because of an assumption that there are living hostages held there. Last year, six Israeli hostages were executed by their captors after ground forces moved in.
There has not been a formal response but officials from the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, denounced the Israeli proposal, calling on the international community to intervene to prevent any new military occupation.
Palestinians point out that far-right Israeli ministers have been openly advocating for the full occupation and annexation of Gaza and ultimately want to build new Jewish settlements there.
In 2005, Israel dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdrew its forces from there.
But alongside Egypt, it maintained a tight control of access to the territory.
The new occupation idea comes amid growing international moves to revive the two-state solution – the long-time international formula to resolve the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. It envisages an independent Palestinian state being created alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Last week, the UK and Canada joined France in announcing conditional plans for recognising a Palestinian state.
The Israeli PM is now expected to meet with key ministers and military leaders to decide next steps in Gaza. Israeli army radio says they are due to discuss initial army plans to surround the central refugee camps and carry out air strikes and ground raids.
Netanyahu said he would convene a full security cabinet meeting this week.
Israeli media commentators have voiced scepticism and drawn attention to the practical military, political and diplomatic challenges. Writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Nahum Barnea says: "Netanyahu has never taken a gamble on this scale before."
He notes that the Israeli PM has repeated his vow to achieve all of his war goals.
"But after 22 months of bloody fighting, it is hard to take those kinds of promises seriously. It seems that Netanyahu has just one objective in the war in Gaza, to prolong the war."
Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas's attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.
At least 61,020 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes and gunfire in the Gaza Strip killed at least 46 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, most of them among crowds seeking food, health officials said.

Israel has continued to carry out daily strikes as its military offensive and blockade have led to the "worst-case scenario of famine" in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians, according to an international authority on hunger crises.

Ceasefire talks appeared to have stalled again last week, with no end in sight to the nearly 22-month war sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. The Trump administration's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected in Israel on Thursday, according to a person familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not yet been made public.

More than 30 people were killed while seeking humanitarian aid, according to hospitals that received the bodies and treated dozens of wounded people. Another seven Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition-related causes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Israeli military didn't immediately comment on any of the strikes. It says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because the group's militants operate in densely populated areas.

Strikes, and gunfire at aid sites

Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said that it received 12 people who were killed Tuesday night when Israeli forces opened fire towards crowds awaiting aid trucks coming from the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.

Thirteen others were killed in strikes in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, the hospital said.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of 16 people who it says were killed Tuesday evening while waiting for aid trucks close to the newly-built Morag corridor, which the Israeli military carved out between Khan Younis and the southernmost city of Rafah.

The hospital received another body for a man killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis, it said.

The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp said that it received the bodies of four Palestinians who it says were killed Wednesday by Israeli fire close to an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area, south of the Wadi Gaza.

Israel has eased its blockade but obstacles remain

Under heavy international pressure, Israel announced a series of measures over the weekend to facilitate the entry of more international aid to Gaza, but aid workers say much more is needed.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, the leading world authority on hunger crises, has stopped short of declaring famine in Gaza but said Tuesday that the situation has dramatically worsened and warned of "widespread death" without immediate action.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that facilitates the entry of aid, said over 220 trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday. That's far below the 500-600 trucks a day that U.N. agencies say are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.

The U.N. is still struggling to deliver the aid that does enter, with most trucks unloaded by crowds in zones controlled by the Israeli military. The alternative aid system run by the Israeli-backed GHF has also been marred by violence.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since May, most near sites run by GHF, according to witnesses, local health officials and the U.N. human rights office. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding.

International airdrops of aid have also resumed, but many of the parcels have landed in areas that Palestinians have been told to evacuate while others have plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, forcing people to swim out to retrieve drenched bags of flour.

Deaths from malnutrition

A total of 89 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in Gaza. The ministry said that 65 Palestinian adults have also died of malnutrition-related causes across Gaza since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults.

Israel denies there is any starvation in Gaza, rejecting accounts to the contrary from witnesses, U.N. agencies and aid groups, and says the focus on hunger undermines ceasefire efforts.

Hamas started the war with its attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including around 20 believed to be alive. Most of the rest of the hostages were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.

Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.

Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region.

During a visit to Britain, the US president contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza.

Trump is under increasing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinians having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory.

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In meetings with Keir Starmer – including a rambling 70-minute press conference at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland – the president also said he was losing patience with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine and vowed to impose sanctions on Russia’s trading partners within 10-12 days if there was no ceasefire.

He heaped praise on Starmer, but in a domestic intervention that will not have been appreciated by the British prime minister, Trump urged him to cut taxes and tackle illegal immigration to win the next election.

Starmer privately pressed Trump on Gaza during the trip, government sources said.

The US president told reporters that Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis in a rebuke to Netanyahu, who had claimed earlier on Monday that there was “no starvation in Gaza”.

Asked whether he agreed with this assessment, Trump said: “I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.”

He later added: “We can save a lot of people, I mean some of those kids. That’s real starvation; I see it and you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more involved.”

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Asked what he would ask Netanyahu for next time they spoke, Trump said: “We’re giving money and we’re giving food, but we’re over here … I want him to make sure they get the food. I want to make sure they get the food, every ounce of food.”

Trump criticised Hamas for not releasing the remaining hostages and said the militant group was “very difficult to deal with”, while suggesting he had asked the Israeli government to change its approach. “I told Israel, I told Bibi, that you have to now maybe do it a different way,” he said.

The president was speaking before a bilateral meeting with Starmer, who flew to Ayrshire to meet him on Monday. The two leaders were due to visit Trump’s second golf course in Aberdeenshire and have dinner together on Monday evening.

Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Putin and was “not so interested in talking to him any more” because of his decision to continue airstrikes against civilian targets in Ukraine.

“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” Trump said. “You have bodies lying all over the street, and I say that’s not the way to do it.”

Trump said he would cut his 50-day deadline for a ceasefire to between 10 and 12 days before he imposed secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners.

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He piled pressure on Starmer to cut taxes and immigration, calling the prime minister and Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, “good men”.

“I assume there’s a thing going on between you and Nigel and that’s OK,” Trump said. “But generally speaking, the one who cuts taxes the most, the one who gives you the lowest energy prices and the best kind of energy, the one that keeps you out of wars … I think the one that’s toughest and most competent on immigration is going to win the election.”

Speaking alongside Trump, Starmer told the press conference that the British public were “revolted” at the “absolute catastrophe” in Gaza and said there was an urgent need for a ceasefire.

Israel announced over the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery, while the UK confirmed it was working with Jordan to carry out airdrops into the territory.

Starmer is due to convene an emergency cabinet meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on Tuesday afternoon. Ministers will be presented with a peace plan which the UK is working up alongside France and Germany.

The prime minister is under pressure from senior cabinet ministers and more than 220 MPs to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, after Emmanuel Macron announced that France would do so at the UN general assembly in September. Trump dismissed the idea on Monday but suggested he had no objection to the UK or other allies doing so.

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Trump also said the US and its allies would set up “walk-in” food centres without barriers in the region, though he gave little detail about how these would operate.

On Monday afternoon, about 100 protesters gathered in Balmedie, the closest village to Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course, waving Palestinian flags and chanting: “You are not welcome here.”

Kay Collin, a retired modern studies teacher, said she had made the trip from Edinburgh because “watching what is happening in Gaza, if it was happening to my grandchildren I would hope other people would stand up for them”.

While many people cited the starvation crisis in Gaza as the most urgent reason for their protest, Trump’s policies on immigration, transgender rights and cuts to international aid, and there were placards and chants accusing him of misogyny and bullying behaviour.

Jenna Harpin, a mother of four from Portsoy, said she was “disgusted” at how much money was being spent by the Scottish and UK governments on hosting Trump’s visit, especially at a time when local councils were making cuts to vital services.

The protesters marched through the village as the police presence swelled in anticipation of Trump’s arrival. Local access had been significantly restricted with lines of police officers blocking off the beach and snipers spotted on the dunes.