Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

The White House said Thurs­day that the U.S. has sub­mit­ted a new Gaza cease­fire pro­pos­al that has Is­raeli sup­port. Hamas of­fi­cials gave the Is­raeli-ap­proved draft a cool re­sponse, but said they want­ed to study the pro­pos­al more close­ly be­fore giv­ing a for­mal an­swer.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Mideast en­voy had ex­pressed op­ti­mism this week about bro­ker­ing an agree­ment that could halt the Is­rael-Hamas war, al­low more aid in­to Gaza, and re­turn more of the 58 hostages still held by Hamas, around a third of whom are alive.

“I can con­firm that spe­cial en­voy (Steve) Witkoff and the pres­i­dent sub­mit­ted a cease­fire pro­pos­al to Hamas that Is­rael backed and sup­port­ed,” White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt told re­porters.

But Leav­itt said talks were on­go­ing and Hamas had not yet ac­cept­ed terms of the pro­pos­al.

Witkoff on Wednes­day said the U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion was close to pre­sent­ing a new pro­pos­al.

Mean­while, the Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant group, Hamas, has yet to for­mal­ly re­spond to the lat­est pro­pos­al for a tem­po­rary cease­fire in Gaza, which Is­rael has ac­cept­ed.

“The Zion­ist re­sponse, in essence, means per­pet­u­at­ing the oc­cu­pa­tion and con­tin­u­ing the killing and famine,” Bassem Naim, a top Hamas of­fi­cial, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

He said it “does not re­spond to any of our peo­ple’s de­mands, fore­most among which is stop­ping the war and famine.”

Nonethe­less, he said the group would study the pro­pos­al “with all na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

The new pro­pos­al was in­tend­ed to re­turn sur­viv­ing as well as dead hostages still be­ing held in Gaza in ex­change for an ex­tend­ed truce in fight­ing.

Ex­perts say a near­ly three-month Is­raeli block­ade of Gaza — slight­ly eased in re­cent days — has pushed the pop­u­la­tion of rough­ly 2 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans to the brink of famine.

Is­rael’s war in Gaza has killed around 54,000 Pales­tini­ans, most­ly women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to the Gaza Health Min­istry, which does not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants in its tal­ly. The war be­gan with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 at­tack on Is­rael, which left around 1,200 dead. —(AP)