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Trump Says Israel Has Agreed on Terms for 60-Day Ceasefire in Gaza, Urges Hamas to Accept Deal

Trump Says Israel Has Agreed on Terms for 60-Day Ceasefire in Gaza, Urges Hamas to Accept Deal

Asharq Al-Awsat6 days ago
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Israel has agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and warned Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.
Trump announced the development as he prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks at the White House on Monday. The US leader has been increasing pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas to broker a ceasefire and hostage agreement and bring about an end to the war in Gaza.
'My Representatives had a long and productive meeting with the Israelis today on Gaza. Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War,' Trump wrote, saying the Qataris and Egyptians would deliver the final proposal.
'I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,' he said.
Trump's promise that it was his best and final offer may find a skeptical audience with Hamas. Even before the expiration of the war's longest ceasefire in March, Trump has repeatedly issued dramatic ultimatums to pressure Hamas to agree to longer pauses in the fighting that would see the release of more hostages and a return of more aid to Gaza's civilian populace.
Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer was in Washington on Tuesday for talks with senior administration officials to discuss a potential Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other matters. Dermer was expected to meet with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump repeated his hope for forging an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal next week.
Asked if it's time to put pressure on Netanyahu to get a ceasefire deal done, Trump said the Israeli prime minister was ready to come to an agreement.
'He wants to,' Trump said of Netanyahu in an exchange with reporters while visiting a new immigration detention facility in Florida. 'I think we'll have a deal next week.'
Talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over a major sticking point — whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire agreement. About 50 hostages remain captive in Gaza, with less than half believed to be alive.
The development came as over 150 international charities and humanitarian groups called Tuesday for disbanding a controversial Israeli- and US-backed system to distribute aid in Gaza because of chaos and deadly violence against Palestinians seeking food at its sites.
The joint statement by groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International followed the killings of at least 10 Palestinians who were seeking desperately needed food, witnesses and health officials said. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 in southern Gaza's Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital.
'Tents, tents they are hitting with two missiles?' asked Um Seif Abu Leda, whose son was killed in the strikes. Mourners threw flowers on the body bags.
Before Trump's announcement, Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, had warned that his country would respond forcefully to the firing of a missile the military said originated from Yemen. Sirens sounded across parts of Israel, alerting residents to the attack and the launch of two projectiles from Gaza. All were intercepted by Israeli defense systems.
The missile launch marked the first attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militants since the end of the 12-day war initiated by Israel with Iran. Katz said Yemen could face the same fate as Tehran.
Nasruddin Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media office, vowed on social media that Yemen will not 'stop its support for Gaza ... unless the aggression stops and the siege on Gaza is lifted.'
Speaking to his Cabinet, Netanyahu did not elaborate on plans for his visit to Washington next week, except to say he will discuss a trade deal. Iran is also expected to be a main topic of discussion in Washington after Trump brokered a ceasefire between it and Israel.
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On the radio and online, Palestinians keep up with Israel's West Bank roadblocks
On the radio and online, Palestinians keep up with Israel's West Bank roadblocks

Arab News

time33 minutes ago

  • Arab News

On the radio and online, Palestinians keep up with Israel's West Bank roadblocks

RAWABI: Radio presenter Hiba Eriqat broadcasts an unusual kind of traffic reports to her Palestinian listeners grappling with ever-increasing Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank. 'Deir Sharaf: traffic, Qalandia: open, Container: closed,' Eriqat reads out from drivers' live reports, enumerating checkpoints to let listeners know which of the West Bank's hundreds of checkpoints and gates are open, busy with traffic, or closed by the Israeli military. 'My mission is to help Palestinian citizens get home safely,' she told AFP in the radio studio in the city of Rawabi between her thrice-hourly broadcasts. 'Covering traffic in the West Bank is completely different from covering traffic anywhere else in the world.' The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has long been dotted with checkpoints, but obstacles to Palestinians' movement in the territory have proliferated since the 2023 start of the war in Gaza — a separate territory. In the West Bank, a territory roughly the size of the US state of Delaware, there are hundreds of new checkpoints and gates, but Israeli authorities do not provide updates about their status. 'The army might suddenly close a checkpoint, and the traffic jam would last an hour. Or they might just show up and then withdraw seconds later, and the checkpoint is cleared,' Eriqat said. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in early 2025 there were 849 obstacles restricting the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including checkpoints, road gates, earth walls, trenches and roadblocks. Updates on WhatsApp groups To navigate, Palestinians often rely on minute-by-minute updates from drivers on WhatsApp and Telegram groups, some of which were created by Basma Radio to feed Eriqat's broadcasts. 'We turned to taxi drivers, truck drivers, private companies and even ordinary people,' said Eriqat, to create the West Bank's only traffic report of its kind. The updates were launched in October 2023 — the same month the Gaza war broke out — and are now broadcast by other Palestinian radio stations too. A Telegram group run by Basma Radio now has some 16,000 members. Fatima Barqawi, who runs news programs at the station, said the team had created 'contact networks with people on the roads,' also receiving regular updates from Palestinians who live near checkpoints and can see the traffic from their window. Beyond the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, the traffic reports sometimes feature warnings about roads blocked by Israeli settlers, whose attacks against Palestinians have also risen throughout the war. It is a constantly shifting roadscape, Eriqat said, complicating even what otherwise should have been a quick drive to work, home or to see family and friends. 'You might tell people the checkpoint is open now, but three minutes later, it's jammed again. And it's not a regular jam — it could last six or seven hours,' she said. Safe journey 'not guaranteed' Maen, a 28-year-old video editor, used to tune in to Basma Radio to plan his weekly commute from Ramallah to his hometown of Bethlehem, but now prefers checking what other drivers have to say. 'I often call a friend who has Telegram while I'm on the road' and ask for updates from checkpoints, said Mazen, who asked to use his first name only for security reasons. He has deleted Telegram from his own phone after hearing about Palestinians getting into trouble with soldiers at checkpoints over the use of the messaging app. But in a sign of its popularity, one group in which drivers share their updates has 320,000 members — more than one-tenth of the West Bank's population. Rami, an NGO worker living in Ramallah who also declined to give his full name, said he listened to the radio traffic reports but mainly relied on Telegram groups. Yet a safe journey is far from guaranteed. Rami told AFP he recently had to stop on the way to his hometown of Nablus. 'I pulled over, checked the news and saw that 100 settlers had gathered at a settlement's road junction and started throwing stones at Palestinian cars,' recognizable by their green license plates, he said. And passing through a military checkpoint often 'depends on the soldier's mood,' said Eriqat. 'That's the difficult part.'

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