The President of the United States, Donald Trump, puts pressure on a cease-fire contract in Gaza after issuing a “last warning” to the Palestinian group of Hamas.
Trump provided little details, but he insinuated that the war already catastrophic against Gaza – in which Israel has already killed more than 64,500 Palestinians and a famine was declared – could still worsen if Hamas has not subjected to the terms of his new proposal.
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Negotiators in the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been working on a cease-fire contract for months, but Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected or have not responded to efforts to end their military operations.
More recently, Hamas has accepted a cease-fire proposal months ago by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would have led to the partial release of the captives held in Gaza.
However, Israel and the United States fell after Netanyahu changed its air and insisted on a complete release of captives – as well as the complete surrender of Hamas. Trump now says that his new proposal could lead to a different and more positive result.
“We are working on a solution that can be very good … You will hear about it very soon. We are trying to finish it, collect the hostages,” the American president told Washington, DC, Sunday evening, referring to the Israeli captives still in Gaza.
Here is everything you need to know about Trump’s last plan and if it will stop the genocidal war of Israel in Gaza.
What is the plan?
Little information has been disclosed on the agreement. However, the Israeli media say that the proposal is similar to that previously proposed by the American special envoy Steve Witkoff, but with some crucial differences.
Witkoff had previously proposed an agreement where half of the living Israeli captives would be released, which would then lead to a 60-day ceasefire and negotiations for a permanent end of war. This was agreed by Israel, but then, once Hamas had also indicated its agreement, Netanyahu insisted on the release of all captives, apparently declaring to the Israeli cabinet that “a partial transaction is not relevant”, and that “Hamas must be destroyed”.
The current proposal was pushed by Trump seems to call for the release of all Israeli captives from the start, in exchange for an undeveloped number of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons, then only negotiations – but no permanent end to war.
“(The new proposal) is essentially a variation in the Witkoff plan – an exchange of hostage -prisoners, after which negotiations are starting to end the war”, according to an analysis of the Israeli Journal Haaretz.
The crucial difference is that the release of all captives would not come in exchange for an immediate end to war, leaving Israel little encouraging not to continue to attack Gaza with even more intensity in the pursuit of its declared objective to completely destroy Hamas. This objective is difficult to quantify, and many Palestinians consider it a useful coverage for the complete destruction of Gaza.
How did Hamas respond?
Hamas confirmed that it had received an American proposal. The group published a statement saying that it had welcomed “any initiative that contributes to efforts to stop the aggression against our people”.
Hamas has been held several times: that the other Israeli captives detained in Gaza are released in exchange for guarantees that Israel would stop its attacks and retire from Gaza.
“We affirm our immediate desire to sit at the negotiating table to discuss the release of all prisoners in exchange for a clear declaration to end the war, the total withdrawal of Gaza, and the training of a committee to manage Gaza of the Palestinian self -employed, which will immediately start their work,” was announced by Hamas.
Writing on Telegram, the senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, said: “It is clear that the main objective is to reach the refusal of the offer and not to achieve an agreement that led to the end of the war.”
What is the position of Israel?
Israel accepted the proposal, according to a press conference that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Gideon Saar on Monday. He said that Israel was ready to end the war in exchange for all the captives and that Hamas laid his arms.
Hamas previously declared that it would only give up its weapons if Israel withdraws from Gaza and would accept a Palestinian state made up of the West Bank and occupied Gaza, with East Jerusalem as capital.
Despite Israel’s support for Trump’s proposal, some analysts think that Israel will later try to run the proposal and claim that they accepted it while Hamas was to be refused. This has priority.
Hamas previously accepted ceasefire proposals, only for Netanyahu to add conditions that he knows will not be ready for the group – or to the Palestinians – like a tactic to continue the war.
In the meantime, Israeli officials continue to threaten Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on Monday that a “powerful hurricane” will hit the territory and destroy the targets of Hamas, because Israel destroys high -rise civilian buildings through the Gaza Strip.
Also on Monday, Netanyahu threatened residents of Gaza City, telling them to “get out of there”, and that an operation on the ground was about to start in the city.
Will the proposal work?
Trump is convinced that it will be the case.
“I think we will get them all,” he said about the return of Israeli captives. Trump had previously predicted on August 25 that war would arrive at a “conclusive end” within three weeks.
But we do not know why this time will be different from the moment when Trump made Past promise to end the war. Analysts largely believe that Trump’s last proposal will respond to the similar destinies that the elders, largely due to the reluctance of Netanyahu to end the war.
“This will not lead to anything because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no desire or interest in putting an end to war,” wrote Chaim Levinson in an analysis by Haaretz. “He rather wants to say that Hamas is recalcitrant so that it can continue for several months.”
The United States under Trump has also shown little appetite to brake Netanyahu. In May, Witkoff told Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the United States will not “force Israel to end the Gaza War”.
Can we trust Trump?
Trump says that if Hamas abandons all remaining captives, the United States ensures that negotiations are progressing. However, Trump made a similar promise when his team helped outgoing US President Joe Biden Ink A cease-fire contract which entered into force on January 19.
Netanyahu unilaterally violated the ceasefire to continue the war two months later.
Critics are skeptical that Netanyahu will be held to any future ceasefire agreement, unless the United States reintegrates it and does not hold responsible Israel.
“There are very good reasons not to trust Netanyahu or Trump at the moment to force Israel to stick to his word,” said Omar Rahman, an expert in Israel-Palestine of the Middle East Council on World Affairs, a reflection group in Doha, Qatar.
“This is particularly true in the light of their public plans to clean ethnically Gaza and make it an American real estate development,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Trump had previously proposed that the population of Gaza was forced to go out and that a “Gaza Riviera” be built on the ruins of the territory, an idea largely condemned as ethnic cleaning. The American president has largely lowered the mention of the proposal, although he and his administration have sometimes returned to the idea.
What happens next?
The Israel genocide in Gaza does not seem to end in the predictable future.
While Trump levels in Hamas, doctors in Gaza have limited supplies and find it difficult to treat patients, survivors describe that the Gaza part “living in an element of hell”, more children die of hunger and Israeli forces target the remaining infrastructure of the strip.
