DEIR al-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas said Friday it has given a “positive” response to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza but said further talks were needed on implementation.
It was not clear if Hamas’ statement meant it had accepted the proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump for a 60-day ceasefire. Hamas has been seeking guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war, now nearly 21 months old. Trump has been pushing hard for a deal to be reached, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit the White House next week to discuss a deal.
The Hamas statement came as Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early Friday, while a hospital said another 20 people died in shootings while seeking aid.
The U.N. human rights office said it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within the span of a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid. Most were killed while trying to reach food distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization, while others were massed waiting for aid trucks connected to the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, it said.
Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, during which the U.S. would "work with all parties to end the war.” He urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.
In its statement late Friday, Hamas said it “has submitted its positive response” to Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
It said it is “fully prepared to immediately enter into a round of negotiations regarding the mechanism for implementing this framework.” It did not elaborate on what needed to be worked out in implementation.
A Hamas official said the ceasefire could start as early as next week but he said talks were needed first to work out how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in return for each freed Israeli hostage and to specify the amount of aid that will enter Gaza during the truce. Hamas has said it wants aid to flow in greater quantities through the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the response with the press.
The official also said that negotiations would start from the first day of the truce on a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in return for the release of remaining hostages. He said that Trump has guaranteed that the truce will be extended beyond 60 days if needed for those negotiations to reach a deal. There has been no confirmation from the United States of such a guarantee.
Previous rounds of negotiations have run aground over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war's end, while Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the destruction of the militant group.
“We’ll see what happens. We’re going to know over the next 24 hours,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Thursday when asked if Hamas had agreed to the latest framework for a ceasefire.
Officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least three Palestinians were killed Friday while on the roads heading to food distribution sites run by the Israeli-backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in southern Gaza.
Since GHF began distributions in late May, witnesses have said almost daily that Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians on the roads leading to the food centers. To reach the sites, people must walk several kilometers (miles) through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road.
The Israeli military has said previously it fires warning shots to control crowds or at Palestinians who approach its troops. The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel’s military.
On Friday, in reaction to the U.N. rights agency's report, it said in a statement that it was investigating reports of people killed and wounded while seeking aid. It said it was working at “minimizing possible friction between the population” and Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes.
Separately, witnesses have said Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians who gather in military-controlled zones to wait for aid trucks entering Gaza for the U.N. or other aid organizations not associated with GHF.
On Friday, 17 people were killed waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis in the Tahliya area, officials at Nasser Hospital said.
Three survivors told the AP they had gone to wait for the trucks in a military “red zone” in Khan Younis and that troops opened fire from a tank and drones.
It was a “crowd of people, may God help them, who want to eat and live,” said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in the leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had grabbed. “There was direct firing.”
Airstrikes also hit the Muwasi area on the southern end of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes are sheltering in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in the strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital.
Israel’s military said it was looking into Friday’s reported airstrikes. It had no immediate comment on the reported shootings surrounding the aid trucks.
The spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, Ravina Shamdasani, said the agency was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by GHF.
In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related,” meaning at or near its distribution sites.
In a statement Friday, GHF cast doubt on the casualty figures, accusing the U.N. of taking its casualty figures “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry”and of trying “to falsely smear our effort.”
Shamdasani, the U.N. rights office spokesperson, told the AP that the data “is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organizations.”
Rik Peeperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization, said Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital operating in the south, receives dozens or hundreds of casualties every day, most coming from the vicinity of the food distribution sites.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also said in late June that its field hospital near one of the GHF sites has been overwhelmed more than 20 times in the previous months by mass casualties, most suffering gunshot injuries while on their way to the food distribution sites.
Also on Friday, Israel’s military said two soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, one in the north and one in the south. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began, including more than 400 during the fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis in southern Gaza and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in the territory has passed 57,000. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry is run by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government, and its numbers are widely cited by the U.N. and international organizations.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
Kullab reported from Jerusalem and Mroue from Beirut. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed.
An Israeli army tank advances in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke rises from Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Thousands of people marched in Minneapolis Saturday to protest the fatal shooting of a woman by a federal immigration officer there and the shooting of two protesters in Portland, Oregon, as Minnesota leaders urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.
The Minneapolis gathering was one of hundreds of protests planned in towns and cities across the country over the weekend. It came in a city on edge since the killing of Renee Good on Wednesday by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
“We’re all living in fear right now,” said Meghan Moore, a mother of two from Minneapolis who joined the protest Saturday. “ICE is creating an environment where nobody feels safe and that’s unacceptable.”
On Friday night, a protest outside a Minneapolis hotel that attracted about 1,000 people turned violent as demonstrators threw ice, snow and rocks at officers, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Saturday. One officer suffered minor injuries after being struck with a piece of ice, O’Hara said. Twenty-nine people were cited and released, he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stressed that while most protests have been peaceful, those who cause damage to property or put others in danger will be arrested. He faulted “agitators that are trying to rile up large crowds.”
“This is what Donald Trump wants,” Frey said of the president who has demanded massive immigration enforcement efforts in several U.S. cities. “He wants us to take the bait.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz echoed the call for peace.
“Trump sent thousands of armed federal officers into our state, and it took just one day for them to kill someone,” Walz posted on social media. “Now he wants nothing more than to see chaos distract from that horrific action. Don’t give him what he wants.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities is its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation. Trump's administration has said both shootings were acts of self-defense against drivers who “weaponized” their vehicles to attack officers.
Connor Maloney said he was attending the Minneapolis protest to support his community and because he's frustrated with the immigration crackdown.
“Almost daily I see them harassing people,” he said. “It’s just sickening that it’s happening in our community around us.”
Steven Eubanks, 51, said he felt compelled to attend a protest in Durham, North Carolina, on Saturday because of the “horrifying” killing of Good in Minneapolis.
“We can’t allow it,” Eubanks said. “We have to stand up.”
Indivisible, a social movement organization that formed to resist the Trump administration, said hundreds of protests were scheduled in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida and other states.
In Minneapolis, a coalition of migrant rights groups organized the demonstration that began in a park about half a mile from the residential neighborhood where the 37-year-old Good was shot on Wednesday. Marchers carried signs calling for ICE to leave and voiced support for Good and immigrants.
A couple of miles away, just as the demonstration began, an Associated Press photographer witnessed heavily armed officers — at least one in Border Patrol uniform — approach a person who had been following them. Two of the agents had long guns out when they ordered the person to stop following them, telling him it was his “first and final warning.”
The agents eventually drove onto the interstate without detaining the driver.
Protests held in the neighborhood have been largely peaceful, in contrast to the violence that hit Minneapolis in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Near the airport, some confrontations erupted on Thursday and Friday between smaller groups of protesters and officers guarding the federal building used as a base for the Twin Cities crackdown.
O’Hara said city police officers have responded to calls about cars abandoned because their drivers have been apprehended by immigration enforcement. In one case, the car was left in park and in another case a dog was left in the vehicle.
He said immigration enforcement activities are happening “all over the city” and that 911 callers have been alerting authorities to ICE activity, arrests and abandoned vehicles.
The Trump administration has deployed thousands of federal officers to Minnesota under a sweeping new crackdown tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. More than 2,000 officers were taking part.
Some officers moved in after abruptly pulling out of Louisiana, where they were part of another operation that started last month and was expected to last until February.
Three congresswomen from Minnesota attempted to tour the ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building on Saturday morning and were initially allowed to enter but then told they had to leave about 10 minutes later.
U.S, Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig accused ICE agents of obstructing members of Congress from fulfilling their duty to oversee operations there.
“They do not care that they are violating federal law,” Craig said after being turned away.
A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing policies that limit congressional visits to immigration facilities. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by 12 members of Congress who sued in Washington, D.C. to challenge ICE’s amended visitor policies after they were denied entry to detention facilities.
Associated Press writers Allen Breed in Durham, North Carolina, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed.
People place flowers for a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Friday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Demonstrators march outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Demonstrators march outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Rep. Kelly Morrison D-Minn., center, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., second from the right, and Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., far right, at the Bishop Whipple Federal Building, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference as Police Chief Brian O'Hara listens, on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal agents stand outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal agents stand outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal agents look on as protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
A woman holds a sign for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the week, as people gather outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Two people sit in the street with their hands up in front of Minnesota State Patrol during a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Minnesota State Patrol officers are seen during a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Minnesota State Patrol officers are seen during a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Two people sit in the street holding hands in front of Minnesota State Patrol during a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
