Netanyahu hints that Gaza ceasefire talks now focus on the release of all hostages at once

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. The militants still hold 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 of them are alive.

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 militant group has refused to lay down its arms, as Israel has demanded.

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 militants 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 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.

In a separate development, the Israeli military said it recently struck a group of militants 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.

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

Einav Zangauker, center, mother of Matan Zangauker who is held hostage by Hamas, sits beside an installation resembling a coffin during a protest demanding an end to the war and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in the old building of the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Aug.11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Pool)

In the summer heat, a Palestinian boy carries jerrycans after collecting water from a distribution point in Gaza City, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in the old building of the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Aug.11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Pool)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A man who is suspected of killing two and wounding several others at Brown University has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility, a law enforcement official and a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The man was found dead Thursday evening. He is believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the person familiar with the matter said.

Investigators believe the man is responsible for both the shooting at Brown and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was fatally shot in his Brookline home Monday, the official said. Authorities have not formally confirmed a connection between the two shootings.

The official and the person familiar with the matter could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and both spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

Two people were killed and nine were wounded in the mass shooting Saturday at Brown University. The investigation had shifted Thursday when authorities said they were looking into a connection between the Brown mass shooting and an attack two days later near Boston that killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro.

The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the cases.

It has been nearly a week since the shooting at Brown. There have been other high-profile attacks in which it took days or longer to make an arrest, including in the brazen New York City sidewalk killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO last year, which took five days.

But frustration mounted in Providence that the person behind the attack managed to get away and that a clear image of their face hadn't emerged.

Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack happened in an older part of the engineering building that has few, if any, cameras. And investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces a residential street bordering campus, which might explain why the cameras Brown does have didn’t capture footage of the person.

In such targeted and highly public attacks, the shooters typically kill themselves or are killed or arrested by police, said Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent and expert on mass shootings. When they do get away, searches can take time.

In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took investigators four days to catch up to the two brothers who carried it out. In a 2023 case, Army reservist Robert Card was found dead of an apparent suicide two days after he killed 18 people and wounded 13 others in Lewiston, Maine.

The man accused of killing conservative political figure Charlie Kirk in September turned himself in about a day and a half after the attack on Utah Valley University's campus. And Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last year, was arrested five days later at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania.

Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of MIT's largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

He grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, the university said.

“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told a campus publication.

Loureiro had said he hoped his work would shape the future.

“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab last year. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history.”

This story was updated to delete a reference to MIT being an Ivy League school.

Richer and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Law enforcement officers search the area for the Brown University shooting suspect, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Salem, N.H. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha)

A pedestrian walks along Brown University's campus on Thayer St. in Providence, R.I., Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

This image taken from video provided by the FBI shows a person of interest in the investigation of the shooting that occurred at Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI via AP)

A poster seeking information about the campus shooting suspect is seen on the campus of Brown University, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A woman lights a candle at a memorial set up in front of the Barus and Holley engineering building at Brown University in Providence, RI, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/ Mark Stockwell)

A Brown University student walks past a church on the Providence, RI, campus, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/ Mark Stockwell)