US President Donald Trump has announced that Israel and Hamas have “signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan”.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed-upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
“All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” he added
According to the White House, Donald Trump will have his regular yearly health check-up at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC, on Friday morning, Al Jazeera reported. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said he may travel to the Middle East soon after, where talks are underway to finalise a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s Gaza chief, is meeting with Egypt’s intelligence chief to finalise a “historic” Gaza deal, a source familiar with the talks told Al Jazeera. The sources said the agreement could be announced on Thursday.
Palestine has accused Israel of waging a “genocidal war” in Gaza in a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), warning that the devastation has reached unprecedented levels, Al Jazeera reported.
Published on the State of Palestine’s official X account, the letter said, “while the rest of the world exerts all efforts to stop the bloodshed, Israel, the occupying power, persists with its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza”.
It said Israel had “insisted on its criminal path of collective punishment”, accusing it of destroying Palestinian society and pursuing the “colonisation and annexation” of occupied land, as per Al Jazeera.
According to the statement, “The casualty toll since October 2023 has surpassed at least 2,37,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone,” with most homes and civilian infrastructure destroyed. It also warned that Israel’s “all-out assault on Palestinian existence risks being replicated in the West Bank”, citing rising settler violence and forced displacement.
“Israel’s degradation of life and of international law must be halted. On this tragic second anniversary, we reiterate: This genocide must be stopped,” the letter concluded.
