Trump urges Hamas to accept ceasefire proposal
Israel has accepted a number of conditions, which means that it will be able to put the final touches on a draft for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump writes this on his own social media, Truth Social, without going into further detail about what the conditions are.
- My representatives held a long and productive meeting with the Israelis today, he writes. It is not clear who the representatives from the US and Israel are.
Trump also calls on the militant group Hamas to say yes to the proposal.
- I hope for the sake of the Middle East that Hamas says yes to this agreement, because it will not get better - it will only get worse, it says.
The final proposal will be presented by mediators from Qatar and Egypt, Trump writes, praising them for having worked hard to create peace in the area.
Over the weekend, Trump said that Israel and Hamas would be able to reach a ceasefire within a week.
On Tuesday, unnamed officials informed the AP, Reuters and other media outlets that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the US capital, Washington D.C., on Monday next week.
Here he will meet with Trump and, among other things, turn the situation in Gaza around.
Neither Hamas nor Israel have immediately commented on Trump's statements.
The war in Gaza flared up on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.
A ceasefire between the two parties came into effect on January 19 of this year. During the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages and around 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released.
The second phase of the ceasefire never became a reality when the ceasefire collapsed and Israel resumed attacks on Gaza in March.
At the beginning of March, Israel implemented a blockade, which meant that no emergency aid could be transported into the Palestinian territory. This has prompted several organizations to warn of a humanitarian crisis in the area.
Last Tuesday, 170 NGOs demanded that an American- and Israeli-backed organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, GHF, stop distributing emergency aid.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called the GHF a death trap because over 500 have been killed in connection with the distribution of emergency aid.
On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article in which anonymous Israeli soldiers said that they had been ordered to open fire on unarmed civilians who were trying to get emergency aid.
/ritzau/
