Saudi Ambassador to Tunisia Meets US Counterpart
During the meeting, the two ambassadors reviewed bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
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Al Arabiya
29 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Trump says Hamas response ‘good', signals possible Gaza deal next week
President Donald Trump said on Friday it was good that Hamas said it had responded in 'a positive spirit' to a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire proposal. He told reporters aboard Air Force One there could be a deal on a Gaza ceasefire by next week, but that he had not been briefed on the current state of negotiations. 'We have to do something about Gaza — we're sending a lot of money and a lot of aid,' Trump told reporters, as Hamas said it was ready to start negotiations 'immediately' on a US-backed truce proposal. The announcement comes ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington on Monday. The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by the group. Two previous ceasefires brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States resulted in temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu earlier on Friday vowed to bring home all the hostages held in Gaza after coming under intense domestic pressure over their fate.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Hamas says ready to start Gaza ceasefire talks ‘immediately'
Hamas on Friday said it was ready to start talks 'immediately' on a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the civil defense agency said Israel's ongoing offensive killed more than 50 people. The announcement came after consultations with other Palestinian factions and ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington on Monday, where US President Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the war, now in its 21st month. 'The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place' the terms of a draft US-backed truce proposal received from mediators, the armed group said in a statement. 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. The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by the group. Two previous ceasefires brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States resulted in temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu earlier on Friday vowed to bring home all the hostages held in Gaza after coming under intense domestic pressure over their fate. 'I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them,' he said. Trump said on Thursday he wanted 'safety for the people of Gaza.' 'They've gone through hell,' he said. A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told AFP earlier this week that the latest proposals included 'a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip' — thought to number 22 — 'in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.' Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations. The military said in a statement it had been striking suspected Hamas targets across the territory, including around Gaza City in the north and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south. Gaza civil defense official Mohammad al-Mughayyir said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 52 people on Friday. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports, except for a handful of incidents for which it requested coordinates and timeframes. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulty accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency. In a separate statement, the Israeli military said a 19-year-old sergeant 'fell during combat in the southern Gaza Strip.' Mughayyir said the Palestinians killed included five people shot while waiting for aid near a US-run site in Rafah in southern Gaza, and several more near the Wadi Gaza Bridge in the center of the territory. They were the latest in a series of deaths near aid distribution centers in the devastated territory, which UN agencies have warned is on the brink of famine. At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, crowds mourned 16 people killed on Thursday by what the civil defense agency said was shooting near a nearby aid center. 'I lost my brother in the American distribution center that they set up to feed people,' cried one mourner, Narmin Abu Muammar. 'They are killing people, not feeding them.' Medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Abdullah Hammad, who recently finished a contract working for it, was among those killed in Thursday's shooting. It said he was the 12th colleague the group had lost in the Gaza war. 'We demand an end to this bloodshed,' MSF said in a statement. The US- and Israeli-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distanced itself from reports of deadly incidents near its sites. Mughayyir told AFP that eight people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the tents of displaced civilians near Khan Yunis. The civil defense official said eight more people were killed in two other strikes on camps on the coast, including one that killed two children early Friday. The Israeli military said it was operating throughout Gaza 'to dismantle Hamas military capabilities.' The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,268 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
End to war in Gaza ‘is Saudi Arabia's priority': FM Prince Faisal
A permanent ceasefire and an end to the war in Gaza are Saudi Arabia's current priority, the Kingdom's foreign minister said on Friday. Prince Faisal bin Farhan was speaking on a visit to Moscow, where he was asked about the possibility of Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel. The Kingdom's main aim was peace in the Palestinian enclave, he said. 'What we are seeing is the Israelis are crushing Gaza, the civilian population of Gaza. This is completely unnecessary, completely unacceptable, and has to stop.' In 2024, the foreign minister said that there can be no normalization of ties with Israel without resolving the Palestinian issue. US President Donald Trump said he expected Hamas to respond to his 'final proposal' for a ceasefire in Gaza in the next 24 hours. Hamas said it was still studying the plan and consulting other Palestinian factions. The militant group is demanding guarantees that talks to end the war would take place during the proposed 60-day ceasefire, and that the pause in fighting would be extended until both sides came to terms. At least 20 Palestinians were killed early on Friday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, 15 in an attack on a tent city for displaced people near Khan Younis in the south and the other five in Jabaliya in the north. At funeral prayers for the dead in Khan Younis, Mayar Al-Farr, 13, wept over the body of her brother Mahmoud. 'The ceasefire will come, and I have lost my brother? There should have been a ceasefire long before I lost my brother,' she said. Adlar Mouamar, whose nephew Ashraf was also killed, said: 'Our hearts are broken. We ask the world, we don't want food ... we want them to end the bloodshed. We want them to stop this war.' The local health ministry in Gaza says more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's assault on the region since an October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. According to Israel, 1,200 people were killed in that attack and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza.
