内容摘要：In Mexico City, for example, there are 773 candidates running for 168 local positions, while in the port city of Campeche, there are only 20 hopefuls vying for 11 local seats.

In Mexico City, for example, there are 773 candidates running for 168 local positions, while in the port city of Campeche, there are only 20 hopefuls vying for 11 local seats.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Basem Naim said that Hamas had still “responded positively” to the latest proposal relayed to it by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, despite the Palestinian group saying that the proposal was different to one it had agreed upon with Witkoff a week earlier.“One week ago, we agreed with Mr Witkoff on one proposal, and we said, ‘This is acceptable, we can consider this a negotiating paper,'” Naim said. “He went to the other party, to the Israelis, to get their response. Instead of having a response to our proposal, he brought us a new proposal … which had nothing to do with what we agreed upon.”

In a statement released earlier on Saturday, Hamas had said that it had submitted a response to Witkoff, and that the proposal “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid” to Palestinians in Gaza.Hamas added that 10 living Israeli captives would be released as part of the agreement, as well as the bodies of 18 dead Israelis, in exchange for an “agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners”.Witkoff called Hamas’s response “totally unacceptable”.

“Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week,” the envoy said in a post on social media. “That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families, and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Hamas’s response, “As Witkoff said, Hamas’s response is unacceptable and sets the situation back. Israel will continue its action for the return of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”

Israel has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with starvation looming across Gaza after weeks of Israeli blockade, and only a small flow of aid since Israel allowed it to resume in mid-May.

With hopes for a permanent truce seemingly fading once again, the level of hunger and desperation inside Gaza grows, with Israel allowing only a trickle of humanitarian aid into the Strip after it had imposed a total blockade for more than two months. The UN warned on Friday that all of the 2.3 million population of Gaza is now at risk of famine. That came after it said in mid-May that one in every five Palestinians there is experiencing starvation.Students, teachers, academics, artists, and so many others have been exiled, charged, or even jailed for refusing to ignore or sanitise the horror we see day after dreadful day.

In this context, my travails, while stinging and disconcerting, are modest in comparison. Departed friends, however dear, are, it seems, the price for candour that unsettles.Those friendships, built over decades through sometimes happy, sometimes sad experiences and shared confidences, have evaporated in an instant.

I understood that this rupture could happen. I did not fear it. I accepted it.Yet, when it did happen, it pricked.