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Gaza civil defence says 29 killed in Israeli strikes

Palestinian children inspect a destroyed vehicle after an Israeli attack in Gaza City, Gaza
Palestinian children inspect a destroyed vehicle after an Israeli attack in Gaza City, Gaza

Gaza's civil defence agency said that 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory devastated by 21 months of war.

Among those were nine people killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people near Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Mr Bassal said that 20 other people, including at least three children and two women, were killed in six other strikes on Tuesday across Gaza.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military when contacted by AFP.

The military earlier announced that five of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza and two others were severely wounded.

Due to restrictions imposed on media in Gaza and difficulties accessing the area, AFP is unable to independently verify the death tolls and details shared by the parties involved.

The war was triggered by Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

The attack resulted in 1,219 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

Of the 251 people abducted that day, 49 are still hostages in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli army.

At least 57,523 Gazans, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's retaliatory campaign, according to data from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The figures are deemed reliable by the UN.

Proposal outlines large-scale 'Humanitarian Transit Areas' for Palestinians in Gaza

Meanwhile, a proposal seen by Reuters and bearing the name of a controversial US-backed aid group described a plan to build large-scale camps called "Humanitarian Transit Areas" inside - and possibly outside - Gaza to house the Palestinian population.

It outlined a vision of "replacing Hamas' control over the population in Gaza."

The $2 billion plan, created sometime after 11 February and carrying the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, was submitted to the Trump administration, according to two sources, one of whom said it was recently discussed in the White House.

The plan, reviewed by Reuters, describes the camps as "large-scale" and "voluntary" places where the Gazan population could "temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so."

The Washington Post made a reference to GHF plans to build housing compounds for Palestinian non-combatants in May.

A slide deck seen by Reuters goes into granular detail on the "Humanitarian Transit Zones," including how they would be implemented and what they would cost.

A young boy carrying an aid parcel, walks along the Salah al-Din road near the Nusseirat refugee camp in Gaza
A young boy carries a GHF aid parcel

It calls for using the sprawling facilities to "gain trust with the local population" and to facilitate US President Donald Trump's "vision for Gaza."

Reuters could not independently determine the status of the plan, who created and submitted it, or whether it is still under consideration.

The aid group, responding to questions from Reuters, denied that it had submitted a proposal and said the slides "are not a GHF document."

GHF said it had studied "a range of theoretical options to safely deliver aid in Gaza," but that it "is not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs)."

Rather, the organisation said it is solely focused on food distribution in Gaza.

A spokesperson for SRS, a for-profit contracting company that works with GHF, told Reuters "we have had no discussions with GHF about HTAs, and our 'next phase' is feeding more people. Any suggestion otherwise is entirely false and misrepresents the scope of our operations."

The document included the GHF name on the cover and SRS on several slides.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 06: U.S. President Donald Trump walks into the White House on July 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump is returning from a 4th of July weekend in Bedminster. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The proposal calls to facilitate US President Donald Trump's 'vision for Gaza'

The proposal was laid out in a slide presentation that a source said was submitted to the US embassy in Jerusalem earlier this year.

The US State Department declined to comment.

A senior administration official said, "nothing of the like is under consideration. Also, no resources are being directed to that end in any way."

The source working on the project said that it had not moved forward due to a lack of funds.

Reuters previously reported that GHF had attempted to set up a Swiss bank account from which to solicit donations, but UBS and Goldman Sachs declined to work with the organisation.

The Israeli Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters it "categorically" rejects the GHF, calling it "not a relief organisation but rather an intelligence and security tool affiliated with the Israeli occupation, operating under a false humanitarian guise."

'Large-scale' camps

The undated slide presentation, which includes photos dated 11 February, said that the GHF is "working to secure" over $2 billion for the project, to "build, secure and oversee large-scale Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs) inside and potentially outside Gaza strip for the population to reside while Gaza is demilitarized and rebuilt."

The Humanitarian Transit Areas described in the slides would be the next phase in an operation that began with GHF opening food distribution sites in the enclave in late May, according to two sources involved in the project.


Read more: Gaza truce talks resume as Trump pushes for deal


In June the US State Department approved $30 million in funding for the GHF and called on other countries to also support the group.

The United Nations has called GHF's operation "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. The U.N. human rights office says it has recorded at least 613 killings at GHF aid points and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups including the U.N.

One slide outlining a timeline said a camp would be operational within 90 days of the launch of the project and that it would house 2,160 people, along with a laundry, restrooms, showers and a school.

A source working on the project said that the slide deck is part of a planning process that began last year and envisions a total of eight camps, each one capable of sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.