By NATALIE MELZER, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hinted that ceasefire efforts in Gaza are now focused on a comprehensive deal that would release the remaining hostages all at once, rather than in phases.

Arab officials told The Associated Press last week that mediators Egypt and Qatar were preparing a new framework for a deal that would include the release of all remaining hostages in one go in return for a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The long-running indirect talks appeared to break down last month. But a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo for ceasefire talks on Tuesday, Egypt’s state-run Qahera news channel reported, a sign that efforts have not been abandoned after 22 months of war.

Israel has threatened to widen its military offensive against Hamas to the areas of Gaza that it does not yet control, and where most of the territory’s 2 million residents have sought refuge.

Those plans have sparked international condemnation and criticism within Israel, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire. Hamas still holds 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 of them are alive.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

‘I want all of them’

In an interview with Israel’s i24 News network broadcast Tuesday, Netanyahu was asked if the window had closed on a partial ceasefire deal. Egyptian Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty told reporters that Cairo is still trying to advance an earlier proposal for an initial 60-day ceasefire, the release of some hostages and an influx of humanitarian aid before further talks on a lasting truce.

“I think it’s behind us,” Netanyahu replied. “We tried, we made all kinds of attempts, we went through a lot, but it turned out that they were just misleading us.”

“I want all of them,” he said of the hostages. “The release of all the hostages, both alive and dead — that’s the stage we’re at.”

He added, however, that Israel’s demands haven’t changed, and that the war will end only when all hostages are returned and Hamas has surrendered. He has said that even then, Israel will maintain open-ended security control over the territory.

Hamas has long called for a comprehensive deal but says it will only release the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The group has refused to lay down its arms, as Israel has demanded.

UN warns about starvation, malnutrition

The United Nations on Tuesday warned that starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at the highest levels since the war began.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reported the warning from the World Food Program and said Gaza’s Health Ministry told U.N. staff in Gaza that five people died over the last 24 hours from malnutrition and starvation.

The ministry says 121 adults and 101 children have died of malnutrition-related causes during the war.

“Against this backdrop, humanitarian supplies entering Gaza remain far below the minimum required to meet people’s immense needs,” Dujarric said.

The U.N. and its humanitarian partners are doing everything possible to bring aid into Gaza, he said, but still face significant delays and impediments from Israeli authorities that prevent the delivery of food and other essentials at the scale needed.

Hamas-led combatants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in that 2023 attack. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has since displaced most of Gaza’s population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. It has killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.

The ministry says 121 adults and 101 children have died of malnutrition-related causes during the war.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Israel says it struck combatants disguised as aid workers

In a separate development, the Israeli military said it recently struck a group of combatants in Gaza who were disguised as aid workers and using a car with the logo of international charity World Central Kitchen.

The army said it carried out an airstrike on the men after confirming with the charity that they were not affiliated with it and that the car did not belong to it.

World Central Kitchen confirmed that the men and the vehicle were not affiliated with it. “We strongly condemn anyone posing as World Central Kitchen or other humanitarians, as this endangers civilians and aid workers,” it said in a statement.

The military shared video footage showing several men in yellow vests standing around a vehicle with the charity’s logo on its roof. The military said five of the men were armed.

The charity, founded in 2010, dispatches teams that can quickly provide meals on a mass scale in conflict zones and after natural disasters.

In April, an Israeli strike killed seven World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza. Israel quickly admitted it had mistakenly killed the aid workers and launched an investigation.

In November, an Israeli strike killed five people, including a World Central Kitchen worker who Israel said was part of the Hamas attack that sparked the war. The charity said at the time that it was unaware the employee had any connection to the attack.

Associated Press reporters Samy Magdy and Fay Abuelgasim in Cairo and Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed.

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.

“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in an interview with i24, and Israeli TV station. He did not make reference to South Sudan.

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.

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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.

RELATED STORY | Netanyahu defends planned military offensive in Gaza and lashes out at ‘global campaign of lies’

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.”

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.

“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in an interview with i24, and Israeli TV station. He did not make reference to South Sudan.

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.”

___

Associated Press reporters Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C. and Samy Magdy in Cairo, Egypt, contributed

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Amna Nawaz: This week, at least 40 people have been killed by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces as fighting intensified in the Western Darfur region.

Over the last nearly 2.5 years, a brutal civil war between that paramilitary RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces has killed tens of thousands of people and created the largest hunger and displacement crisis in the world. Over 14 million people, more than a quarter of the population, have been displaced within and outside of Sudan, and the city El Fasher in Darfur faces famine and has for over a year.

Stephanie Sy brings us this update.

And a warning: Some of the images in this story may be disturbing.

Stephanie Sy: This is the way to El Fasher in Darfur, Western Sudan, by donkey. No aid enters here,a generation of its children facing starvation, eating animal feed to ease the gnawing hunger.

A famine was declared in the Zamzam camp in El Fasher more than a year ago.

Fatma Yaqoub, Displaced Mother (through interpreter): We are suffering so much from no food, no water. We are hungry. Our children are naked. We have nothing to eat but animal feed. There is no water. We have nothing.

Mohammed Eldouda, Spokesperson, Zamzam Camp: The risk of using animal feed to eat is dangerous TO our health. We are in acute starving and acute hunger.

Stephanie Sy: Mohammed Eldouda works at Zamzam. With hundreds of thousands living here, it’s Sudan’s largest internally displaced persons camp. Eldouda filmed these videos.

For over a year, the camp and the city has been under a suffocating siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Mohammed Eldouda: Our civilians in El Fasher, from the morning, they are chasing, they are searching for the things to make or to prepare the meal or their food. Because of the siege of El Fasher, nothing can enter, not the humanitarian aid, not goods.

Stephanie Sy: What began as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, has escalated into a brutal civil war. Sudanese cities are the battlegrounds.

And while Sudan’s army is accused of war crimes, the paramilitary RSF is accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing. In March, the Sudan army took back the capital city of Khartoum, which was captured and held by the RSF for nearly two years. But, in April, the RSF declared a parallel government based in Darfur, a large region in Western Sudan of more than seven million people that has been the site of gross atrocities for two decades.

It is now largely controlled by the RSF, with the exception of the besieged El Fasher. Another hot spot in the conflict, Kordofan, has become a strategic crossroads for both sides in the conflict. The RSF killed dozens of people there in the last few weeks in one of the most deadly episodes of violence in this nearly-2.5-year conflict.

Adnan Hezam, International Committee of the Red Cross: International community, the world should be — not ignore what is happening now in Sudan, because every day there is further escalation.

Stephanie Sy: Adnan Hezam, the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, spoke to the “News Hour” from Port Sudan.

Adnan Hezam: We are talking about 25 million people who need assistance in different aspects, food, shelter, water, medication, everything. What we are witnessing, there is no respect for international humanitarian law.

So, the ICRC, since the eruption of this conflict, remind and urge all the parties involved in the conflict to respect the law, to spare the lives of civilians.

Stephanie Sy: Their lives are precarious, caught in a cycle of famine and disease, a cholera outbreak, and on top of that, malaria.

The ICRC warns that Sudan’s health infrastructure is at the brink of collapse, with 80 percent of facilities shut down. Most people in conflict areas have no access to health care, and even those who do rely on these makeshift clinics.

In a village outside El Fasher, Huda Ali and her family escaped famine, but not the war. She’s pregnant and already the mother of four.

Huda Ali, Displaced Mother (through interpreter): Until now, my husband the father of my children, has not come back to us from El Fasher. I had fled with the children. We have family members that are still missing.

Stephanie Sy: And, everywhere, so much trauma. Enaam Abdallah only 19, is haunted by what she’s witnessed.

Enaam Abdallah Mohammed, Displaced High School Student (through interpreter): They killed the people. They killed people in front of us. They took the girls in front of us and raped them.

Stephanie Sy: Rape and starvation deployed as weapons of war in a part of the world that fears it’s been forgotten.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Stephanie Sy.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revived calls to “allow” Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, as the military prepares a broader offensive in the territory.

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Past calls to resettle Gazans outside the war-battered territory, including from US President Donald Trump, have sparked concern among Palestinians and condemnation from the international community.

Netanyahu defended his war policies in a rare interview with Israeli media, broadcast shortly after Egypt said Gaza mediators were leading a renewed push to secure a 60-day truce.

The premier told Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS that “we are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave”.

“Give them the opportunity to leave, first of all, combat zones, and generally to leave the territory, if they want,” he said, citing refugee outflows during wars in Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

In the Gaza Strip, Israel for years has tightly controlled the borders and barred many from leaving.