Hamas says it is ready for ceasefire talks with Israel 'immediately' - which could see a 60-day truce and 10 hostages released from Gaza
Security officials in Tel-Aviv reportedly met tonight to discuss their next steps before Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington for talks on Monday with US President Donald Trump.
And it is believed that the Israeli cabinet have decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible deal, according to Israel's Channel 12 whose report cited a senior official.
It was unclear whether the delegation will fly to Qatar on Saturday or Sunday.
The move comes after Trump launched a renewed push to end nearly 21 months of war in Gaza - where the civil defence agency said a further 35 people were killed in Israeli military operations today.
'No decision has been made yet on that issue,' an Israeli government official said when asked about Hamas' s seemingly positive response to the latest ceasefire proposal.
The militant group said yesterday it was 'ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place' a US-backed truce proposal.
Two Palestinian sources close to the discussions told the AFP news agency that the proposals included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel.
They said the group was also demanding certain conditions for Israel's withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system.
Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks but demanded guarantees that Israel 'will not resume its aggression' once hostages held in Gaza are freed.
When asked about Hamas's response aboard Air Force One, Trump said: 'That's good. They haven't briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.'
The war began with Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked an Israeli offensive in the territory that aimed to destroy Hamas and bring home all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants.
Previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States secured temporary halts in fighting and the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said today that top diplomat Badr Abdelatty held a phone call with Washington's enjoy to th Mid, Steve Witkoff, to discuss recent developments 'and preparations for holding indirect meetings between the two parties concerned to reach an agreement'.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said today that top diplomat Badr Abdelatty held a phone call with Washington's enjoy to th, Steve Witkoff, to discuss recent developments 'and preparations for holding indirect meetings between the two parties concerned to reach an agreement'.
Pictures of the remaining Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip are displayed on a table by a beach outside the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv on July 4, 2025
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has also renewed calls for a negotiated agreement to bring the hostages home.
'This is the hour to bring about a comprehensive deal that will guarantee the return of the last hostage,' they said.
Recent efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the main point of contention said to be Israel's rejection of Hamas's demand for guarantees of a lasting ceasefire.
The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.
US and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May after Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries.
The group said two of its US staff members were wounded 'in a targeted terrorist attack' at one of its aid centres in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis on Saturday, adding that reports indicated a pair of assailants 'threw two grenades at the Americans'.
The Israeli military said it had evacuated the injured.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
Its operations have been marred by near-daily reports of Israeli fire on people waiting to collect rations.
UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said yesterday that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points.
GHF chairman Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical leader allied to Trump, on Wednesday rejected calls for the lead role in Gaza aid distributions to revert to UN agencies, saying: 'We will not be shut down.'
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Israeli military operations killed 35 people across Gaza on Saturday.
The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people, who were mostly civilians.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,338 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures reliable.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Israel heads to Qatar for Gaza talks despite calling Hamas demands ‘unacceptable'
Israel will send a delegation to Qatar on Sunday for proximity talks with Hamas over the latest Gaza ceasefire and hostage release proposal. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the talks despite calling Hamas 's proposed changes to the mediator-backed plan 'unacceptable', his office said. The prime minister's security cabinet held a meeting late on Saturday after Hamas said it had delivered a 'positive response' to the proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and was 'fully prepared and serious' about immediately entering a new round of negotiations. 'The changes that Hamas is seeking to make in the Qatari proposal were conveyed to us last night and are unacceptable to Israel,' Mr Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Sunday. However, it added: 'In light of an assessment of the situation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed that the invitation to proximity talks be accepted and that the contacts for the return of our hostages - on the basis of the Qatari proposal that Israel has agreed to - be continued. The negotiating team will leave tomorrow.' The US-led ceasefire talks have appeared to gain momentum ahead of Mr Netanyahu's visit to Washington. The Israeli prime minister is set to leave on Sunday to meet the US president Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a ceasefire. It remains unclear what specific changes Hamas has requested to the US-led ceasefire proposal. According to Al Jazeera, Hamas has made three core demands for amending the current ceasefire proposal: a long-term resolution to end the war after the 60-day pause, the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza without the involvement of the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory. The US plan envisages the staggered release of 10 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas, as well as the return of the bodies of 18 others, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and a halt to the bombing of Gaza. Mr Trump, who announced the 'final proposal' for a 60-day ceasefire, said that Israel had accepted the 'necessary conditions' to end the hostilities. He posted on Truth Social that he wanted to be 'very firm' with Mr Netanyahu during their talks and planned to issue a warning to Hamas. '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,' Mr Trump wrote. However, Mr Netanyahu is likely to face opposition within his own government, with some right-wing members demanding the complete destruction of Hamas. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, wrote on X on Saturday night that the Israeli military must reconquer the entire enclave, halt all humanitarian aid, and encourage the people of Gaza to emigrate. 'The only way to achieve victory and securely return our hostages is through the complete conquest of the Strip, a total cessation of 'humanitarian' aid, and the encouragement to emigration,' he said. 'I call on the prime minister to abandon the path of surrender and return to the path of victory.' Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, the families and supporters of Israeli hostages held a massive anti-government rally to demand the release of their loved ones. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded a comprehensive deal to end the war and the release of the remaining hostages. Some 50 of the 200 people taken captive during the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 remain in Gaza. Israel believes some 27 of them are dead. In Gaza, weary Palestinians expressed cautious hope after Hamas gave a 'positive' response late on Friday. 'We are tired. Enough starvation, enough closure of crossing points. We want to sleep in calm where we don't hear warplanes or drones or shelling,' said Jamalat Wadi, one of Gaza's hundreds of thousands of displaced people, speaking in Deir al-Balah. Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas demands for guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war's end, while Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged a 'total victory' over Hamas and has refused to withdraw from Gaza. 'Send a delegation with a full mandate to bring a comprehensive agreement to end the war and bring everyone back. No one must be left behind,' Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, told the weekly rally by relatives and supporters in Tel Aviv. Over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is led by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Who are the shadowy figures running US-Israeli aid operation in Gaza?
At their disposal was $3 million in $100 bills, satellite communications equipment, and the weapons required for their covert mission of linking up with anti-Taliban forces and laying the groundwork for the larger US invasion to come. It goes without saying that none of the initial seven-member team were exactly household names, even if their extensive time within what was then known as the CIA's 'Special Activities Division' (SAD) had forged them something of a formidable reputation. Among the team was its deputy leader Philip Francis Reilly, who had been doing much the same 'special activities' in Central America back in the early 1980s to the early 1990s where he helped train Nicaragua's right-wing insurgent Contra militias trying to topple the socialist Sandinista government. It all seems like a long time ago, but Reilly has been a fixture in the US intelligence and covert community for quite a while now. Currently – albeit unnoticed by many – his activities are still making headlines, for Reilly's present area of operations these days is in Gaza. There he runs the US private military contractor Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) which, along with another private security contractor, UG Solutions, act as partner to the controversial US-Israeli organisation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that has sidelined the UN and other international organisations as the main supplier of aid in Gaza. Last week, GHF was hit by fresh controversy when one former security contractor who had worked for them told journalists that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who posed no threat. Members of a private US security company, contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US-backed aid group which the UN refuses to work with over neutrality concerns, direct displaced Palestinians as they gather to receive relief Heated debate WHILE GHF has said the allegations are categorically false, the shadowy group from its very inception has been at the centre of heated debate as to precisely what role it performs in Gaza and at who's behest. So just what is known about GHF, those behind it and where its money comes from? The organisation was first established in February this year, shortly after Israel passed legislation seeking to bar the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), the single largest provider of humanitarian aid in occupied Palestine. Israel has long sought to neuter the work of UNWRA which it claims was close to the Hamas authorities. The Israeli authorities say that Hamas made between $0.5bn and $1bn from stealing aid last year, though they have provided no backing for these figures. Other sources reckon Hamas's income was $1bn last year, mostly from foreign earnings. But by early March through to mid-May, Israel anyway had blocked all aid from entering Gaza before announcing its solution: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Almost overnight, a 14-page leaked document circulated among aid groups and journalists setting out the concept and modus operandi of GHF. In short, this was to provide aid to Palestinians from a network of aid distribution hubs secured by armed private contractors and ultimately, beyond their perimeter, by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). So far, Israel has established three such centres south of the Morag corridor, a security strip in southern Gaza, and a fourth near Gaza City, in the north. GHF was registered in America two weeks after Donald Trump took office, and its address is one of a company that incorporates firms. Delaware is a US state acknowledged to have a less than rigorous approach towards ensuring company transparency. Asked by one reporter who visited the company why an organisation would have its registered address there but not be based there, one employee is said to have replied: 'So they're not bothered.' As well as being registered in the US, the GHF is also listed as a non-profit organisation in Switzerland. Since then, Trial International, a Swiss NGO, has filed a request for an investigation, asking authorities to investigate whether GHF adheres to international humanitarian law and Swiss law. READ MORE DAVID PRATT IN UKRAINE: Devastating snapshots of a brutal conflict with no end in sight DAVID PRATT IN UKRAINE: Inside the small village that stood fast against Russia's attempt to capture Kyiv David Pratt on The World: The signs that war in Europe can be avoided are anything but good David Pratt's Four Corners: Black Sea deal offers a grain of hope – but it won't end this brutal war Last week, Switzerland initiated proceedings to dissolve the Geneva branch of the GHF, citing legal shortcomings in its establishment. 'The ESA may order the dissolution of the foundation if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period,' the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) said in a creditors notice published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce last Wednesday. The ESA told reporters the GHF had not fulfilled certain legal requirements including having the correct number of board members, a postal address, or a Swiss bank account. For its part, the 'GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland... and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered (branch),' the ESA added in a statement. Right-wing Knesset members Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and Bezalel Smotrich, attend a special session at the Knesset Israel's parliament, to approve and swear in a new right-wing government, in Jerusalem 'Out of nowhere' THE absence of a funding paper trail along with the sometimes opaque backgrounds of some key players in setting up the GHF are only a few of many concerns since it first appeared almost out of nowhere. As far as the structure of the GHF operation goes, its components are as follows: GHF acts as the overall umbrella organisation. After the early resignation of its original executive director Jake Wood in May, who said the GHF would not be able to fulfil the principles of 'humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence', he was replaced by former USAID official John Acree and former Trump adviser Johnnie Moore. The latter is an evangelical preacher and public relations professional with close ties to both the White House and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Moore was instrumental in an evangelical Christian drive during Trump's first term in office to convince the president to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move the US embassy there. Alongside GHF run its private security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, headed by Reilly and the sole American director of SRS's Israeli branch and financial officer, Charles 'Chuck' J Africano. According to a report by the broadcaster France 24, Africano and Reilly have had past professional dealings, including around 2015 at another security firm Constellis – a successor to the controversial private military contractor Blackwater that gained notoriety for a civilian massacre in Iraq. The two also overlapped at the private security and surveillance firm Circinus, itself a subject of some past controversy related to dealings with foreign governments and its access to high-ranking US officials. Africano's connections with the GHF were first highlighted by the online news portal Middle East Eye and independently confirmed from public records by France 24, says the broadcaster. In a recent report, it also cited Africano as a member of the 'private LinkedIn group of the Tampa-based special operations contractor Quiet Professionals' which it says was acquired last month by the private equity firm McNally Capital. Quiet Professionals is led by Andy Wilson who, on his company's own webpage, is described as a 'valorous combat decorated retired Sergeant Major of the United States Army with 20 years of service… 14 of which were served in a Special Mission Unit'. Quiet Professionalss chief business officer Leo Kryszewski is also known to have spent four years with the CIA's Special Activities Division and the US Army's Office of Military Support, a clandestine intelligence unit often referred to within Joint Special Forces Command (JSOC) as Task Force Orange Helping draw up the blueprint for the GHF, comprising of these main constituent players and parties, was one of the world's most prestigious consulting firms – the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), though the group has since distanced itself from yjr GHF. But as a Financial Times (FT) investigation revealed a few days ago, before disavowing the project, 'BCG's role was more extensive than it has publicly described'. People carry boxes of relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) Israeli think tank ACCORDING to the FT investigation, BCG was originally engaged by Orbis, a Washington-area security contractor that was preparing the study on behalf of the Tachlith Institute, an Israeli think tank. BCG was chosen as a consultant, according to people familiar with the early work, says the FT, 'because of its longstanding relationship with Philip Reilly, an ex-CIA operative who worked for Orbis'. Citing the same sources, the FT said BCG's involvement stretched 'over seven months covering more than $4m of contracted work and involving internal discussion at senior levels of the firm'. As part of the project, codenamed 'Aurora', the BCG team is said to have also built a financial model for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza. This included cost estimates 'for relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the strip' and the economic impact of such a mass displacement. One scenario estimated more than 500,000 Gazans would leave the enclave with 'relocation packages' worth $9,000 per person, or around $5bn in total, the FT detailed. For its part, BCG told the FT senior figures were repeatedly 'misled on the scope of the work by the partners running the project'. Referring to the work on post-war Gaza, BCG said: 'The lead partner was categorically told no, and he violated this directive. We disavow this work.' Just precisely where much of the funding for the GHF comes from remains as shrouded in secrecy as the background of some of the individuals involved. These past weeks the US announced $30m for the GHF but it's thought to have received over $150m so far, much of which is believed to have has gone on hiring mercenaries, some from American private security firms. One job advertisement from UG Solutions said it was seeking 'Special Forces qualified personnel, SFOD-A/CAG, Green Berets, Army Rangers, PJs, Marine Reconnaissance (MARSOC), or other similar backgrounds'. Those 'skilled in unconventional warfare tactics' and selected ' must be ready to deploy within two weeks of May 20, 2025', the advertisement confirmed. While questions remain as to where exactly all of GHF's funding comes from, last month former Israeli defence minister and opposition MP, Avigdor Lieberman, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz he was convinced that Israel's defence ministry and its intelligence arm Mossad were the main paymasters. To date, the GHF's performance in Gaza has been abysmal and mired in controversy. According to most global humanitarian organisations, its presence is only making an already dire situation in Gaza even worse. As a result, these past few days, more than 170 NGOs have called for immediate action to end the 'deadly' GHF aid scheme and revert back to United Nations-led aid co-ordination mechanisms. GHF's role has thrown into sharp focus the dangers of outsourcing core humanitarian functions to private actors and whether, in fact, it is legally or ethically defensible. What happens next with the GHF involves two possible scenarios. The first is that its presence will be transitory, having failed to deliver on an aid mission that should be undertaken by the UN. The cost, meantime, in terms of Palestinian suffering and lives will only continue to rise. The second scenario is that the GHF remains and becomes an instrument of power as part of a strategy that many believe is aimed at herding Palestinians into designated areas to enable a wider process of ethnic cleansing. 'Greater Israel' ISRAEL'S far-right politicians including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, doubtless see the work of the GHF as crucial in their messianic mission to create a 'greater Israel'. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continues to speak of creating 'a sterile zone' for Palestinians. For decades now the CIA's Special Activities Division – now renamed the Special Activities Center (SAC) – has performed countless covert roles, some helping to orchestrate regime change in many places. The Latin motto of SAC is Tertia Optio, which means 'Third Option'. In other words, covert action represents an additional option within the realm of national security when diplomacy and military action are not feasible. With diplomacy at an effective standstill over Gaza, the obvious danger is that other 'options' become in the eyes of some the real way 'forward'. While the GHF's security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions are private companies, the fact that their chief officers and many within their ranks are past operatives of the CIA and its SAC leaves many uneasy. Just as the likes of Philip Reilly and his CIA team all those years ago in Afghanistan were tasked with laying the groundwork for what was to come, could it be that now, through the use of private contractors, much the same is being done in Gaza today? The fact that figures like Reilly and others still have the ear or indeed direct links to senior US government and Israeli officials only adds to this growing disquiet over the actual motives behind GHF's shadowy role in Gaza.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Israel sends team to Qatar for negotiations, but rejects Hamas demands to change ceasefire proposal
Israel has continued to launch waves of airstrikes in Gaza, hours after Hamas said it was ready to start talks 'immediately' on a US-sponsored proposal for a 60-day ceasefire. The announcement by the militant Islamist organisation increased hopes that a deal may be done within days to pause the killing in Gaza and possibly end the near 21-month conflict. On Saturday night Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the country would send negotiators to Qatar on Sunday for talks, despite his office also saying that changes requested by Hamas were not acceptable. Saturday was relatively 'calmer' after days of intense bombardment, aid officials and residents in Gaza said, although 24 Palestinians were killed, including 10 people seeking humanitarian aid, according to hospital officials. Airstrikes struck tents in the Mawasi coastal area in southern Gaza, killing seven, including a Palestinian doctor and his three children, according to medics at a nearby hospital. Four others were killed in the town of Bani Suheila, and three people were killed in three different strikes in the town of Khan Younis. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) made no immediate comment on the attacks. Separately, two US contractors with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) were injured in the south of the territory after unknown assailants threw grenades at them at a food distribution site, the organisation said. The GHF, a US-supported private organisation that began handing out food parcels in Gaza last month, has been mired in controversy, with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, saying it was 'inherently unsafe' and that it was 'killing people'. The GHF denies this, saying it has delivered tens of millions of meals in 'safety and security'. On Saturday night the US state department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, blamed 'Hamas terrorists' for the attack, adding in a post on X: 'This act of violence against the people actually bringing relief to Gazans lays bare the depravity of Hamas.' Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks in shooting or shelling by the IDF while travelling to GHF sites or gathering in large crowds to get aid from convoys brought into Gaza by the UN that are often stopped and looted. Aid workers in Gaza have called again for an immediate cessation of hostilities, saying that fuel stocks for NGOs are close to running out, which would lead to the 'complete collapse' of humanitarian operations, much of the health system and communications across the territory. Power supplies in Gaza rely primarily on large quantities of diesel for generators. 'We are pretty much down to about half a day's worth. When that is gone, everything has to shut down,' said one humanitarian worker in Deir al-Balah. Israel imposed a tight 11-week blockade on Gaza after the most recent ceasefire collapsed in March, which has only been partly lifted to allow a small amount of food aid and medical supplies into the territory. No fuel has been permitted to enter, and supplies that still exist in Gaza are often in Israeli-controlled areas or combat zones and so inaccessible. Netanyahu is to fly to Washington on Sunday for talks with the US president, Donald Trump, who has said in a series of social media posts that he wants the Gaza war to stop. Drafts of the proposed deal seen by the Guardian include a provision specifying that Trump would personally announce any ceasefire – possibly in the coming days during Netanyahu's visit. However, sources close to Hamas said the organisation wants greater clarity over guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a permanent end to the war and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. There is also disagreement over who would be allowed to deliver the 'sufficient aid' described in the draft. Hamas want the GHF to be closed down. Israel wants to maintain a system of distribution independent from the UN or other countries. Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One late on Friday, Trump said he was optimistic and suggested there 'could be a Gaza deal' next week. But Israeli media have described a series of steps involving separate Israeli delegations flying to Qatar and Egypt to complete negotiations, and the current draft specifies that Steve Witkoff, Trump's personal envoy, will travel to the Middle East to finalise the deal. Analysts said this could mean lengthy delays before an agreement is reached. The war in Gaza was triggered by a surprise Hamas-led attack into Israel in October 2023, during which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Fifty remain in Gaza, less than half still alive. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to a count by the territory's ministry of health that is considered reliable by the UN and many western governments.
