Hamas shows positivity on reaching ceasefire deal
Hamas said on social media on Friday that it delivered its response to mediators with a positive spirit. The Islamic group added that it is prepared to immediately enter negotiations for implementing the US-proposed framework.
Local media reported that Hamas had demanded some corrections in the plan.
Media outlets say the proposal calls for Hamas to release 10 living hostages and return 18 bodies to Israel in stages during the 60-day period. Talks to end the conflict would be held at the same time.
US President Donald Trump earlier said Israel already accepted the conditions for the ceasefire.
But local media report that Hamas is demanding guarantees that the truce will lead to a permanent end to the fighting.
A temporary ceasefire took place in Gaza in January. But the fighting resumed in March after negotiations became deadlocked.
Health officials in Gaza said on Friday that the death toll in the enclave since the start of the fighting in October 2023 has risen to 57,268.
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Japan Today
38 minutes ago
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Trump to push Netanyahu for Gaza truce in crunch talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the White House for the third time since US President Donald Trump returned to power By Danny Kemp with Michael Blum U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to press the Israeli prime minister to end the war with Hamas in Gaza. Trump has vowed to be tough on Netanyahu as he hopes to use the momentum from the truce between Iran and Israel to secure a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, too. Trump says Israel is committed to a 60-day halt in fighting and Hamas says it has responded positively to a U.S.-backed proposal -- but sealing a final deal to end the 21-month-old war will be easier said than done. Netanyahu, who is making his third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power in January, has vowed to crush Hamas before ending the conflict. Yet Trump, determined to win the Nobel peace prize and riding a wave of recent foreign and domestic policy victories, is making a renewed push for a result. "There could be a Gaza deal next week," Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday. He said he was "very optimistic" about a deal but added that "it changes from day to day. It's been changing for years." In response to reports that Hamas had responded positively to proposed truce talks, Trump said "that's good," although he said he had not yet been fully briefed on this development. Trump and Netanyahu were in lockstep during the recent Iran-Israel war, which culminated in the U.S. president ordering stealth bombers to strike three crucial Iranian nuclear sites. Washington says the sites were "obliterated" and Iran's nuclear program put back years, although Iran has denied any significant setback. The West accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb, which Tehran denies. But on Gaza, Trump is showing signs of increasing unease with the death and destruction still happening as Israel wages the conflict triggered by a huge Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. "We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza," Trump said on Friday. Trump seems to have parked, for now, his extraordinary proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza that he floated during Netanyahu's first visit in February. "I want the people of Gaza to be safe, more importantly," Trump said when asked about the plan earlier this week. "They've been through hell." Trump has also pushed for the release of hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. He met one released hostage, Edan Alexander, at the White House on Thursday. But while the author of the book "Art of the Deal" prides himself on his negotiating skills, Trump in many ways has an equal in Netanyahu, a political survivor of his own ilk. "I think we're going to see a strategic meeting in the style of 'grand bargaining', as Trump likes them," Michael Horowitz, an independent geopolitical analyst, told AFP. "Even Mr Netanyahu is aware that we are reaching the end of what can be done in Gaza, and that it is time to plan an exit. Netanyahu surely wants it to be gradual." Trump however will be pushing for something quicker and more comprehensive. He boasted on the 2024 campaign trail that he would end both the war in Gaza and Russia's invasion shortly after taking office, but peace in both cases has eluded him so far. Two previous Gaza 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, only to break down. 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 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 the figures reliable. © 2025 AFP
Japan Times
9 hours ago
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Under pressure, Hezbollah weighs scaling back its arsenal
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Hezbollah's Syrian ally, Bashar Assad, was toppled in December, severing a key arms supply line from Iran. Tehran is now emerging from its own bruising war with Israel, raising doubts over how much aid it can offer, a regional security source and a senior Lebanese official said. Another senior official, who is familiar with Hezbollah's internal deliberations, said the group had been holding clandestine discussions on its next steps. Small committees have been meeting in person or remotely to discuss issues including its leadership structure, political role, social and development work, and weapons, the official said on condition of anonymity. The official and two other sources familiar with the discussions indicated Hezbollah has concluded that the arsenal it had amassed to deter Israel from attacking Lebanon had become a liability. Hezbollah "had an excess of power," the official said. "All that strength turned into a weak point." Under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last year, Hezbollah grew into a regional military player with tens of thousands of fighters, rockets and drones poised to strike Israel. It also provided support to allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Israel came to regard Hezbollah as a significant threat. When the group opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in 2023, Israel responded with airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a ground offensive. People gather next to a vehicle carrying the coffins of former Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine, who were killed in Israeli airstrikes last year, in February. | Reuters Hezbollah has since relinquished a number of weapons depots in southern Lebanon to the Lebanese armed forces as stipulated in last year's truce, though Israel says it has struck military infrastructure there still linked to the group. Hezbollah is now considering turning over some weapons it has elsewhere in the country — notably missiles and drones seen as the biggest threat to Israel — on condition Israel withdraws from the south and halts its attacks, the sources said. But the group won't surrender its entire arsenal, the sources said. For example, it intends to keep lighter arms and anti-tank missiles, they said, describing them as a means to resist any future attacks. Hezbollah's media office did not respond to questions for this article. Israel's military said it would continue operating along its northern border in accordance with the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, in order eliminate any threat and protect Israeli citizens. The U.S. State Department declined to comment on private diplomatic conversations, referring questions to Lebanon's government. Lebanon's presidency did not respond to questions. For Hezbollah to preserve any military capabilities would fall short of Israeli and U.S. ambitions. Under the terms of the ceasefire brokered by the U.S. and France, Lebanon's armed forces were to confiscate "all unauthorized arms," beginning in the area south of the Litani River — the zone closest to Israel. Lebanon's government also wants Hezbollah to surrender the rest of its weapons as it works to establish a state monopoly on arms. Failure to do so could stir tensions with the group's Lebanese rivals, which accuse Hezbollah of leveraging its military might to impose its will in state affairs and repeatedly dragging Lebanon into conflicts. All sides have said they remain committed to the ceasefire, even as they traded accusations of violations. Arms have been central to Hezbollah's doctrine since it was founded by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight Israeli forces who invaded Lebanon in 1982, at the height of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. Tensions over the Shiite Muslim group's arsenal sparked another, brief civil conflict in 2008. The United States and Israel deem Hezbollah a terrorist group. Nicholas Blanford, who wrote a history of Hezbollah, said that in order to reconstitute itself, the group would have to justify its retention of weapons in an increasingly hostile political landscape, while addressing damaging intelligence breaches and ensuring its long-term finances. "They've faced challenges before, but not this number simultaneously," said Blanford, a fellow with the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank. A European official familiar with intelligence assessments said there was a lot of brainstorming underway within Hezbollah about its future but no clear outcomes. The official described Hezbollah's status as an armed group as part of its DNA, saying it would be difficult for it to become a purely political party. Nearly a dozen sources familiar with Hezbollah's thinking said the group wants to keep some arms, not only in case of future threats from Israel, but also because it is worried that Sunni Muslim jihadis in neighboring Syria might exploit lax security to attack eastern Lebanon, a Shiite-majority region. Despite the catastrophic results of the latest war with Israel — tens of thousands of people were left homeless and swathes of the south and Beirut's southern suburbs were destroyed — many of Hezbollah's core supporters want it to remain armed. A man carries a picture of the late Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine in Beirut in April. | Reuters Um Hussein, whose son died fighting for Hezbollah, cited the threat still posed by Israel and a history of conflict with Lebanese rivals as reasons to do so. "Hezbollah is the backbone of the Shiites, even if it is weak now," she said, asking to be identified by a traditional nickname because members of her family still belong to Hezbollah. "We were a weak, poor group. Nobody spoke up for us." Hezbollah's immediate priority is tending to the needs of constituents who bore the brunt of the war, the sources familiar with its deliberations said. In December, Secretary-General Naim Qassem said Hezbollah had paid more than $50 million to affected families with more than $25 million still to hand out. But there are signs that its funds are running short. One Beirut resident said he had paid for repairs to his apartment in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs after it was damaged in the war only to see the entire block destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in June. "Everyone is scattered and homeless. 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Israel has also been squeezing Hezbollah's finances. The Israeli military said on June 25 that it had killed an Iranian official who oversaw hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers annually to armed groups in the region, as well as a man in southern Lebanon who ran a currency exchange business that helped get some of these funds to Hezbollah. Iran did not comment at the time, and its U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since February, Lebanon has barred commercial flights between Beirut and Tehran, after Israel's military accused Hezbollah of using civilian aircraft to bring in money from Iran and threatened to take action to stop this. Lebanese authorities have also tightened security at Beirut airport, where Hezbollah had free rein for years, making it harder for the group to smuggle in funds that way, according to an official and a security source familiar with airport operations. Such moves have fueled anger among Hezbollah's supporters toward the administration led by President Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam, who was made prime minister against Hezbollah's wishes. Alongside its Shiite ally, the Amal Movement, Hezbollah swept local elections in May, with many seats uncontested. The group will be seeking to preserve its dominance in legislative elections next year. Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of Lebanon's Annahar newspaper, said next year's poll was part of an "existential battle" for Hezbollah. "It will use all the means it can, firstly to play for time so it doesn't have to disarm, and secondly to make political and popular gains," he said.
Nikkei Asia
9 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
OPEC+ speeds up oil output hikes in August
LONDON (Reuters) -- OPEC+ agreed on Saturday to raise production by 548,000 barrels per day in August, further accelerating output increases at its first meeting since oil prices jumped - and then retreated - following Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran. The group, which pumps about half of the world's oil, has been curtailing production since 2022 to support the market. But it has reversed course this year to regain market share and as U.S. President Donald Trump demanded the group pump more to help keep gasoline prices lower. The production boost will come from eight members of the group - Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Algeria. The eight started to unwind their most recent layer of cuts of 2.2 million bpd in April. The August increase represents a jump from monthly increases of 411,000 bpd OPEC+ had approved for May, June and July, and 138,000 bpd in April. OPEC+ cited a steady global economic outlook and healthy market fundamentals, including low oil inventories, as reasons for releasing more oil. The acceleration came after some OPEC+ members, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, produced above their targets, angering other members that were sticking to cuts, sources have said. Kazakh output returned to growth last month and matched an all-time high. OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, wants to expand market share amid growing supplies from rival producers like the United States, sources have said. With the August increase, OPEC+ will have released 1.918 million bpd since April, which leaves just 280,000 bpd to be released from the 2.2 million bpd cut. On top of that, OPEC+ allowed the UAE to increase output by 300,000 bpd. The group still has in place other layers of cuts amounting to 3.66 million bpd. The group of eight OPEC+ members will next meet on August 3.
