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United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, connected Monday, announced a US-backed bid connection aimed astatine ending the astir two-year-old warfare successful Gaza, informing Hamas that rejection of the program would permission Israel with Washington’s afloat enactment to proceed its subject campaign.
Speaking astatine a associated White House property conference, Trump said some leaders were “beyond precise close” to a woody that could present what has agelong eluded the region. He thanked Netanyahu “for agreeing to the program and for trusting that if we enactment together, we tin bring an extremity to the decease and demolition that we’ve seen for truthful galore years, decades, adjacent centuries, and statesman a caller section of security, bid and prosperity for the full region.”
The White House simultaneously released a 20-point model calling for a ceasefire, an speech of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas disarmament, and the instauration of a transitional authorities led by an planetary body.
Netanyahu, lasting alongside Trump, said, “I enactment your program to extremity the warfare successful Gaza, which achieves our warfare aims. It volition bring backmost to Israel each our hostages, dismantle Hamas’ subject capabilities, extremity its governmental rule, and guarantee that Gaza ne'er again poses a menace to Israel.”
Yet, the cardinal question remains Hamas’s response. The group, which was not portion of the negotiations, inactive holds 48 hostages, 20 of them believed to beryllium alive. “Hamas hasn’t yet received the program officially, thing beyond media publication,” a Hamas authoritative told Reuters.
The plan, drafted by Trump’s peculiar envoy Steve Witkoff and first-term advisor Jared Kushner, envisions a ceasefire followed by the merchandise of hostages wrong 72 hours, successful speech for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces would past gradually retreat from Gaza. A impermanent stabilization unit led by Arab and planetary partners would instrumentality implicit security, with Gaza governed without Hamas engagement and lone a constricted relation for a Palestinian Authority (PA) “representative.”
The roadmap besides gestures toward eventual Palestinian statehood erstwhile Gaza’s reconstruction is nether mode and the PA enacts reforms. But the lack of a wide timeline and Netanyahu’s long-standing absorption to Palestinian statehood stay large obstacles. A root adjacent to the talks acknowledged that the contented was 1 of the main sticking points to Netanyahu’s acceptance of Trump’s proposal.
Netanyahu praised Trump arsenic “a person of Israel” but cautiously distanced himself from U.S. demands for PA reforms. The Israeli person has consistently vowed not to let the PA to power Gaza, contempt its historical relation successful the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Trump, who campaigned successful 2024 connected a committedness to extremity the Gaza war, has repeatedly claimed that a woody was close, lone for negotiations to collapse. Monday’s announcement marks his astir ambitious diplomatic propulsion yet, pursuing the presumption of the program to Arab and Muslim states astatine the U.N. General Assembly past week.
The White House gathering besides underscored the opposition successful Netanyahu’s planetary standing: warmly received by Trump successful Washington, but greeted with walkouts by dozens of delegates during his U.N. code conscionable days earlier.
The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 battle that killed astir 1,200 radical and saw 251 hostages taken, has since claimed implicit 66,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza wellness authorities. Israel has launched 1 of its largest offensives of the struggle successful caller weeks, with Netanyahu insisting the run volition proceed until Hamas is wholly dismantled.
For now, the destiny of Trump’s bid inaugural hangs connected whether Hamas is consenting to engage. Without its acceptance, the latest U.S.-brokered effort risks the aforesaid destiny arsenic earlier failed ceasefire attempts.
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