Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire offer, saying it is prepared to immediately negotiate a deal that would see the release of all remaining hostages in return for an end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

In a video statement, Hamas’ chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said: “We will not accept partial deals that serve Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political agenda.”

Fifty-nine hostages remain in captivity and 24 are thought to be alive. Israel’s latest offer involved a 45-day ceasefire in return for the release of 10 hostages.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was time “to open the gates of hell” on Hamas.

Hamas officials had already indicated to the BBC earlier in the week that they would reject the plan.

“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” Hayya said.

He added the group was “ready to immediately negotiate a deal to swap all hostages with an agreed number of Palestinians jailed by Israel” and end the war.

Hamas has previously said it would contemplate an overall deal to end the war but the two sides are nowhere near any kind of agreement that would bring that about.

Israel’s stated aim is the complete disarmament and destruction of Hamas. Meanwhile dozens of Gazans are dying each day in air strikes with no humanitarian aid entering the strip at all.

The latest series of Israeli strikes killed at least 37 people, the majority of them displaced civilians living in a tented camp, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency.

Witnesses in al-Mawasi said dozens of Palestinians including children had died after tents were set ablaze following a “powerful” explosion.

“I rushed outside and saw the tent next to mine engulfed in flames,” a man told the BBC’s Gaza Lifeline programme.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment but said that it was looking into reports of the strikes.

Israel has previously told Palestinians to evacuate from other parts of Gaza to al-Mawasi.

The Israeli military said attacks over the past two days had “struck over 100 terror targets” including “terrorist cells, military structures and infrastructure sites”.

Israel said there was no shortage of aid and that it was maintaining the blockade installed on 1 March to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages.

However the heads of 12 major aid groups said the humanitarian aid system in Gaza was “facing total collapse”.

The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack on Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has killed at least 51,065 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry

[BBC]

Peru’s former president, Ollanta Humala, has been found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A court in the capital, Lima, said he had accepted illegal funds from the Venezuelan president at the time, Hugo Chávez, and from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to bankroll his election campaigns in 2006 and 2011.

Humala’s lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction.

His wife, Nadine Heredia, was also found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in jail. However, she has been granted safe passage to Brazil after seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy.

Humala’s lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction.

Unlike her husband, Heredia was not present in court when Judge Nayko Coronado passed sentence – she had entered the Brazilian embassy along with the couple’s son before an arrest warrant could be executed.

Brazil offered her asylum and the Peruvian government said it would honour the 1954 asylum convention to grant both Heredia and her son safe passage.

The former president, 62, was meanwhile taken to Barbadillo prison, where two other former leaders, Alejandro Toledo and Pedro Castillo, are already being held.

Humala was the first of four Peruvian presidents to be investigated in connection with the Odebrecht scandal.

Toledo, who governed from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to more than 20 years in prison for taking $35m (£26m) in bribes from the company.

Alan García, president from 1985 to 1990 and 2006 to 2011, killed himself in 2019 as he faced imminent arrest over allegations he was bribed by Odebrecht. He had denied the accusations.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, in office from 2016 to 2018, faced impeachment proceedings after it emerged that Odebrecht had paid him millions of dollars in his previous government role.

The investigation is ongoing. Kuczynski has always maintained the payments were not illegal.

Prosecutors said that Humala and his wife, with whom he co-founded the Nationalist Party, had accepted $3m in illegal contributions from the firm, which they used to finance his 2011 presidential campaign.

They also accused of taking $200,000 from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez to bankroll the 2006 campaign.

The couple have always maintained that they are the victims of political persecution.

Humala’s lawyer, Wilfredo Pedraza, also said that their 15-year sentence was “excessive”.

Prosecutors had asked for 20 years for the ex-president and 25 and a half years for Heredia.

[BBC]