Donald Trump, the president of the United States, expressed his hope for a week-long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Trump made the surprise comment while speaking to reporters on Friday, saying he was upbeat after speaking with some of the people trying to negotiate a truce.
It’s “close, in my opinion.” Trump stated that he had only spoken with some of the people involved.
Without revealing who he had spoken to, the president said, “We think we’ll get a ceasefire within the next week.”
Nour Odeh, a journalist from Amman in Jordan, reported on Trump’s statement that “no negotiations are currently taking place anywhere in the region,” but that it will be “welcome news” for the starved and bombed population of Gaza.
“We are aware that there was an exhilarating increase in talk of a ceasefire after Israel and Iran broke its grip,” we do know. Israel is unwilling to discuss ending the conflict. The Israeli prime minister would take a lot of risks, Odeh said.
However, she continued, there is a consensus, as per numerous reports, that Netanyahu would have to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for the Trump administration’s push for normalization agreements.
Hamas, on the other hand, demands that Israel halt its occupation of Gaza and that Israel’s military withdraw from its occupied territories after the last ceasefire was broken in March.
Hassan also wants assurances that the US will continue to negotiate and that Israel won’t re-enter the ceasefire if additional time is needed, according to Odeh.
Trump’s ceasefire strategy comes as Gaza’s Israeli forces continue to kill civilians and the world is increasingly despising Israel’s war as a result of recent revelations that soldiers claimed they were ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians in the area as they sought humanitarian aid.
Authorities in Gaza claimed that the Haaretz media outlet’s report that Israeli commanders had ordered the deliberate killing of Palestinians was further proof of Israel’s “war crimes” in the region.
Nearly 550 Palestinians have been killed near US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution points in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz’s opposition to the report of commanders who targeted civilians.
According to Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, “people are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families.” He argued that “the search for food must never be the death penalty.”
The situation in Gaza was described as “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid,” according to medical organization Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym MSF).
No details about a potential ceasefire breakthrough in Gaza were disclosed by a spokesperson for Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Before Trump took office in January, Witkoff assisted in brokering a ceasefire and release of Joe Biden’s associates in Gaza. However, Israel broke the truce in March when it launched a series of surprise bombing attacks across the territory.
Israeli officials imposed a blockade on food, water, medicine, and fuel entering the area, which caused the 2.1 million people to be starving, and declared that only military action would bring about the release of the prisoners in Gaza.
Source: Aljazeera
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