Trump pushes 60-day Gaza truce deal - Israel agrees

Key topics:Trump says Israel agrees to 60-day Gaza ceasefire dealHamas must decide; Qatar and Egypt to present proposalCeasefire could free hostages, ease Gaza humanitarian crisis.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By Derek Wallbank and Ethan Bronner.US President Donald Trump said Israel has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and that the plan will now be presented to Hamas.“Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalise the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding that Qatar and Egypt will deliver the final proposal to the Palestinian militant group. “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.”A deal would pause, if not end, a war between Iran-backed Hamas and Israel that’s raged since October 2023, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, devastating Gaza and destabilising the wider Middle East. It would also lead to many of the remaining hostages held by Hamas being released.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House on Monday. It’s unclear if Trump — who consistently talks up his ability to end conflicts around the world — aims to have a truce finalised by then. He said that last week’s ceasefire between Israel and Iran, which he helped broker, presented an opportunity to end the conflict in Gaza..Netanyahu’s government weeks ago agreed to a US proposal for a 60-day truce. But Washington and the other main mediators — Qatar and Egypt — couldn’t get the sides to overcome key sticking points. Hamas said any ceasefire must end the war permanently and also refused Israel’s demands to disarm and remove itself from power in Gaza.Israel hasn’t publicly commented on Trump’s latest remarks. But an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said intense pressure from the Trump administration on both Israel and Hamas is having some effect, leading to modest optimism within Israel that a deal is closer..Read more:.Trump, Iran, Israel and the unknown path to peace: Andrew Kenny.Qatar and Egypt, the official said, will make it clearer to Hamas that talks during the truce would be aimed at ending the war. The official said Israel is likely to send a delegation to negotiations expected to be held either in Cairo or Doha in the coming week.Netanyahu recently stated that Israel’s key concern is to return the remaining hostages in Gaza, a shift from previous statements that the war’s two aims are coequal — the destruction of Hamas and the return of the captives. The chief of Israel’s military, Eyal Zamir, also said that to expand the assault on Hamas would endanger the remaining hostages. Zamir, according to Israeli media reports, described Hamas as a “dead organization.”Far right Israeli ministers expressed anger at those statements and are pushing for the defeat of Hamas to remain at the top of the agenda. That complicates Netanyahu’s position. Still, if negotiations last through July, when parliament goes into recess until mid-October, it will be much harder for those ministers to bring down the government.Trump last week said he thought a ceasefire in Gaza could be “close.” But he didn’t provide further details. The war began with Hamas’s assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 abducted. Of those, around 50 hostages are still in Gaza, with roughly 20 thought by Israel to be alive.Talks have stalled since the last ceasefire ended in March. During that roughly two-month truce, tens of hostages were released.International pressure to halt the war has grown with aid agencies saying the 2 million residents of Gaza are at risk of famine. More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.Though Hamas has lost most of its key leaders and stockpile of missiles in the war, now almost 21 months’ old, it remains a threat to Israeli forces. Last month was the deadliest for the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza since the start of the year, with around 20 soldiers dying.Israel’s attacks continue to kill large numbers of people. At least 74 died in strikes on Monday, including 30 at a seaside cafe, the Associated Press reported, citing witnesses and health officials in Gaza.Netanyahu’s government stepped up its military campaign in May and barred aid for several weeks from the territory in a bid to pressure Hamas — designated a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union — to agree to a ceasefire and return the rest of the hostages. Even as aid deliveries have resumed, the distribution of food supplies has been marred by violence and chaos.In late May, Israel said it had accepted a US ceasefire proposal for Gaza that included a 60-day pause in the fighting, the restoration of United Nations-led food distribution and Hamas releasing some hostages. A counteroffer from Hamas, which wanted a guarantee that Israeli troops would withdraw, was rejected by Trump’s main Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. It is unclear if the conditions Trump said Israel accepted are the same as those in the earlier truce proposal.While Trump is one of Netanyahu’s closest allies on the world stage, the US president has urged him to end the war and secure the release of the remaining hostages. On Tuesday, Trump said he would be “very firm” with Netanyahu in a bid to get a ceasefire..© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Trump pushes 60-day Gaza truce deal - Israel agrees

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