United States President Donald Trump has issued a weekend ultimatum for Hamas to accept his 20-point plan for a ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel’s war on the territory grinds on.
On Friday, the Republican leader took to his social media platform Truth Social to denounce Hamas as a “ruthless and violent threat” and to pressure it to accept his proposal.
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He warned an agreement must be reached by 6pm US Eastern time (22: 00 GMT) on Sunday, or else Gaza would face further violence.
“If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER”, Trump wrote.
The Trump administration had discussed the peace plan with a group of Arab and Muslim leaders in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Then, on Monday, as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a fourth visit to the White House, he unveiled the full text of the plan.
It does not include a pathway to Palestinian statehood, a major point of contention. And it makes few demands of Israel, whose military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66, 000 Palestinians, many of them women and children.
An independent UN commission in September determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to the crime of genocide, confirming similar reports from human rights observers.
But the outline does set forth a plan to “redevelop” Gaza into a “deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours”. It also calls on Hamas to “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form”.
In exchange, aid will be allowed into Gaza, where famine has been declared for half a million people. An Israeli blockade has prevented adequate resources from reaching civilians, heightening the hunger crisis.
The plan also calls for Hamas to release Israeli captives and the bodies of those who died. Israel, in return, will release the 1, 170 Gazans who were detained after the start of the war in October 2023, plus 250 people sentenced to life imprisonment.
The plan also calls for the establishment of a “Board of Peace”, led by Trump himself and helmed by other heads of state, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Trump repeatedly referred to the proposal as Hamas’ “last chance” to negotiate in Friday’s social media post. Hamas would suffer significant losses if it refused to acquiesce, he also reiterated his warnings.
More than 25, 000 Hamas “soldiers” have already been killed, according to Trump, in retribution for the October 7th attack on civilization. The majority of the rest are surrounded and militarily repressed, waiting for me to declare, “GO,” so that their lives can be quickly saved.
We are aware of where and who you are, and you will be hunted down and killed, as for the rest.
Umm al-Khair, occupied West Bank – Every time Yinon Levi returns to Umm al-Khair, where videos and witness testimonies implicate him in the murder of Awdah Hathaleen, anger stirs within the community.
Seeking to prevent further arrests or violence, village leaders urge people to hide in their homes.
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But Levi’s appearance leaves villagers, who have long faced home demolitions by Israeli authorities and attacks from Israeli settlers that have intensified since the war in Gaza started, afraid and seething.
Tariq Hathaleen, 31, is a community leader whose eyes are still bloodshot and glossy in grief over his best friend’s murder two months ago.
“Seeing [Levi] makes me sick,” he said with disgust. “Really, it makes me deeply sick.”
A violent settler
The residents of Umm al-Khair are a Bedouin shepherding community who were expelled from the Naqab Desert during the Nakba, when Zionist gangs ethnically cleansed hundreds of Palestinian villages to make way for the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
The community fled north to the South Hebron Hills, in the southern occupied West Bank, where they bought land to establish a new home across the arid land in clusters of buildings interspersed with wide grazing lands for their livestock.
In 1980, a hilltop was seized from Umm al-Khair. In its place the illegal Israeli settlement of al-Karmil, also known as Carmel, was built, looming over Umm al-Khair, especially its northernmost cluster, where Levi and other settlers are now focusing their attention.
Levi is a notorious Israeli settler sanctioned by the European Union and several governments for violent attacks on Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills, including spearheading the expulsion of Palestinians from Khirbet Zanuta village.
He runs an earthworks company that for years has facilitated setting up settler outposts – small, illegal clusters of caravans or tents settlers put on Palestinian land in hopes of getting Israeli government approval to remain. These outposts are illegal even under Israeli law.
He has also been hired by the Israeli Civil Administration to demolish Palestinian homes in Area C – the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control – where Palestinians seldom get building permits.
In February, settlers from al-Karmil came just south of that northernmost cluster of Umm al-Khair, where the community centre and playing fields are for the whole village, and planted an Israeli flag and olive trees there, staying close to a settler highway at first.
Later, settlers came to measure a strip running from their flag westwards, to see how many settler caravans they could fit in a line hemming in the Palestinian homes and the village community centre.
To make this feasible, they turned to the sanctioned settler, Levi, asking him to level the land on which they wanted to place outpost caravans.
Trapped
The community centre cluster of Umm al-Khair is already bisected by a settler road leading from the illegal settlement of al-Karmil, north of the strip they chose for caravans.
To extend the landgrab, Levi and the settlers wanted to build a shorter connection between the road and the strip of caravans, an access point closer to the gates of the illegal settlement.
But that road would run right through a patch of private Palestinian land in the village, which villagers had recently planted with olive trees.
The villagers erected a fence around their land several times to prevent settler incursions, and an Israeli court upheld their right to have it there. Still, settlers would violently demolish the fence.
The day Awdah was shot dead, July 28, an excavator owned and operated by Levi attempted to plough through this private Palestinian land.
As villagers tried to stop the excavator, with some throwing rocks, Levi came out of the machine and fired twice into the crowd of villagers, among them women and children.
One bullet struck Awdah, who filmed his own death, in the chest.
Levi was released to house arrest by the police the same day. Three days later, an Israeli judge released him from house arrest, agreeing with Levi’s claims that he was acting in self-defence.
Just days after he shot Awdah, Levi was back in the village.
“To see the murderer of your most beloved person in this life return again and again, and yet you’re not allowed even to say a word … it makes me sick,” said Tariq.
“It would be the smallest right in this unlawful, unjust legal system that they ban him from here, but instead they let his company continue working”.
Since the killing of Awdah – a leader who was pivotal in fostering deep ties between the community and global supporters and solidarity activists – Levi has returned at least six times to the village, according to villagers, excavating and landscaping to prepare for settler caravans in Umm al-Khair.
‘Anything he can to provoke you’
Over three separate nights in late August and the first half of September, seven settler caravans were transferred to the area cleared by Levi.
He returned with his construction equipment on September 14 to hook the caravans up to water and electricity lines. While doing so, he was caught on camera using his excavator to destroy the village’s water and electricity lines. Levi emerged from the excavator at the end, jubilant.
“He doesn’t only come here again,” said Tariq. “He comes and smiles at you, laughs at you, [does] anything he can to provoke you.”
An Israeli officer shouts at Palestinians to keep them away from Yinon Levi, who is in the excavator, deliberately destroying the village’s water and power supply lines [Screengrab: Al Jazeera]
“Nothing happens with the settlers randomly or suddenly – it’s something well-planned for,” he continued.
“They send [Levi] and they insist on sending him back again and again. They want to provoke us, for one of the community members to do something.”
The villagers were left without water or power for four days, at which point contractors hired by the village were able to complete the work, harassed and under duress the whole time.
“No water for the goats, no water for us, no lights or cameras to watch for settlers,” recalled Khalil Hathaleen, 39, a member of the village council and Awdah’s brother.
During those four dark nights, the settlers’ usual tactics of blaring loud music and flashing spotlights at the village seemed exceptionally terrifying.
“We didn’t sleep for four days,” said Khalil.
As barefoot Palestinian children play football on a dirt field, settlers descend from a truck metres away to bring supplies to the newly installed caravans. Young settler families tour the caravans, debating whether to move in.
Population transfer of an occupier’s population into occupied lands is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. While Israeli law prohibits settler outposts in the West Bank, the construction and population of these unauthorised outposts are being overseen and protected by al-Karmil’s guard, as soldiers look on.
Tariq Hathaleen is still grieving the murder of his best friend, Awdah [Al Jazeera]
Umm al-Khair, a sprawling Bedouin community, has long faced movement restrictions, attacks on people’s homes, and seizure of village lands by Israeli authorities and settlers from al-Karmil, including settler shepherds who graze on village lands where the villagers’ own sheep can no longer go.
Now, the people of Umm al-Khair fear these new outposts will threaten the safety and integrity of the community even more, following similar troubling trends across the West Bank that threaten even the strongest of Palestinian communities in Area C.
“If the settlers move into these caravans, they will separate the sides of the village,” explained Khalil, referring to a cluster of houses to the south, beyond an expanse of grazing land.
“My wife is from the south side of the village. In the future, maybe [we] cannot go to the south side of Umm al-Khair and see them. We will be cut off.”
The menace that is Shimon Attiya
The villagers can see that settlers operate with impunity, even when apparently violating Israeli law or court orders. Like Shimon Attiya, a settler and a major aggressor against the Umm al-Khair community.
An Israeli court prohibited Attiya this summer from coming within 50 metres (164 feet) of a family’s home after he allegedly harassed and attacked the family repeatedly.
But Attiya returned, repeatedly violating the court order and harassing other families, villagers told Al Jazeera.
He was within 50 metres of the family’s home to harass contractors the villagers had secured permission to bring in and fix the water and electric lines after Levi severed them, preventing them from doing their work.
The day after, the military again obeyed the settlers, despite the permits the village had, declaring the area a closed military zone. It took four days and three attempts to complete the work.
“They’re never held accountable – ever – just because they are settlers, and they have a privilege to have guns, shoot anytime they want, and there’s no accountability for Palestinians if they’re killed,” said Eid Hathaleen, 41, another community leader.
“Instead, this government just supports them with guns, funding, power and legal protection.”
‘The victim pays the price’
On top of the lack of accountability for Awdah’s murder, the villagers found themselves targeted by an occupying army, following orders from the accused killer.
Right after he killed Awdah, Levi brought Israeli soldiers to identify nearly a dozen Palestinians he claimed had attacked him when he shot Awdah.
These men, including Eid and Tariq, were taken to the notorious Ofer Prison. Most of them spent 11 days there without charge, cuffed, shackled and blindfolded, with prison guards beating them, Eid says.
Khalil Hathaleen, in front of the caravans, metres away from where Awdah was shot [Al Jazeera]
“The victim pays the price, while the killer is just free to go,” said Eid.
And yet, Khalil insists that Umm al-Khair’s spirit does not waver.
“After my brother [was killed] … all the community promised together, we will be staying in the land. The murder of Awdah has not broken the people,” said Khalil. “We know what Awdah would want.”
“I prefer to die in my land than for us to become refugees again,” he said.
Yet, village leaders like Eid continue to preach the tenets that have brought worldwide fame to this resilient community of approximately 300 people.
“We told them before [Awdah’s murder] and also after: we need to stay peaceful, to stay non-violent,” said Eid. “And to keep hope … this is the way we survive.”
But as the signs in the village demanding “Justice for Odeh [another spelling of Awdah]” go unheeded, some like Tariq grow fatalistic.
“After the killing of Hajj Suleiman and now Awdah, we all expect to lose our lives,” said Tariq. “If settler Yinon Levi was punished by the system for the killing of Awdah, this very beloved person, others would not dare to shoot and kill and murder people.
The FCDS claims that about 70% of the Nukak population has been driven from their ancestral homelands.
Most families were forced to lead sedentary lifestyles, settling in dormant camps near towns, where child sex abuse and addiction became commonplace.
Others have settled on small plots in rural areas where land disputes between settlers and residents erupted.
The land was taken over as if it were vacant by the colonists. They claim there were no Nukak, but Njibe claimed that the Nukak became ill and left.
The Colombian government is not very active in the Nukak reservation’s most remote areas of the Amazon.
Therefore, when the Nukak attempt to reclaim their lands, they have few legal protections from settler violence.
[Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo/Al Jazeera] A Nukak elder teaches her granddaughter Linda Palma how to make a bracelet out of palm fibers.
However, in recent years, Nukak members like Njibe have decided to leave their homes after getting tired of waiting for government intervention.
In 2020, several clans retreated into the jungle out of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The clans, however, considered staying for the duration after returning to their relative isolation. They requested assistance from non-governmental organizations like FCDS.
Njibe was residing within the Nukak Maku reservation at the time.
Large tracts of the forest had been wiped out even within the reservation after decades of colonization. The tallest palm trees in the Amazon had fallen to grassy pastures full of cows.
Following a government-FARC peace agreement in 2016, deforestation had increased. The rebel group had previously restricted Amazon forest degradation to protect itself from airstrikes.
However, the largest armed rebel group at the time, the FARC, agreed to demobilize as part of the deal. Its replacement was left with a power vacuum.
The FARC claimed that powerful landowners converted the land into cattle pastures as they quickly moved into the areas where they once held cattle.
Armed dissident organizations that disagreed with the peace deal continued to operate in the area, charging extortion rates per cow.
A FCDS expert who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal claimed that “the colonization process has caused many]Nukak] sites to be destroyed or absorbed by settler farms.
[Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo/Al Jazeera] Two Nukak children play in the Amazon rainforest.
The FCDS continued to advance with a pilot program to assist seven Nukak communities as they settled deeper into the reservation, where the lush forest was still present, in 2022. The Nukak were hoping to bring back a more traditional, if not entirely nomadic, way of life.
However, many attempts to find permanent relocation locations were unsuccessful.
Njibe initially planned to relocate to a sacred lake inside the reservation, which he had recalled from childhood, but when he arrived, it turned out to be a ranch.
Njibe was forced to choose another place to live when the settler who owned the ranch requested permission to stay there.
He considered moving back to a forested area that he thought his childhood home was, which is roughly 24 hectares (59 acres) wide and the size of 33 football fields.
The majority of the votes are expected to go to the party of populist billionaire Andrej Babis, raising concerns that Ukraine’s ally, the Czech Republic, may become closer to pro-Russian European Union nations Hungary and Slovakia.
Polling stations closed at 12:00 GMT on Friday, before reopening from 06:00 to 12:00 GMT on Saturday, with results anticipated on Saturday evening.
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It will almost certainly need to work out a coalition, even if Babis’ ANO (Yes) party wins the majority of the vote. According to analysts, the far-right opposition SPD movement, which has a majority of voters support, is the likely candidate.
About 11 million people have signed petitions calling for the halt of military aid to Ukraine in the EU and NATO countries.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala, 61, is the current centre-right coalition government, which has extended extensive humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine. However, many voters accuse it of ignoring domestic issues.
“A change is required,” he said. Jaroslav Kolar, a 68-year-old geographer, told the AFP news agency that the Czech Republic must become more independent and not just a messenger boy for Brussels.
Doctor Anna Stefanova, 41, however, claimed she was concerned about “sway toward Russia.”
Andrej Babis, the head of the opposition ANO (Yes) movement, addresses the media after casting his ballot in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on October 3, 2025. [Peter David Josek/AP]
While he served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, Babis was critical of some EU initiatives. He has a good relationship with Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, and Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who have maintained strong ties with Moscow despite the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Babis has disputed any attempts to leave the EU or NATO, including those that call for referendums, in response to accusations made by the current administration that he would stall the nation’s democratic, pro-Western course.
ANO leads Fiala’s group of opinion polls with about 20%, with support over 30% suggested.
In line with American President Donald Trump, Babis has described himself as a “peacemonger” who calls for a truce in Ukraine and has promised a “Czechs first” approach. He also pledged “a better life” for all Czechs.
The far-right Patriots for Europe organization, which also includes France’s National Rally and other parties, was founded by Babis and cofounded in the European Parliament in 2024.
On X, Fiala stated that voters would choose whether to “continue on the path of freedom, high-quality democracy, security, and prosperity, or to go east.”
Although some observers believe there hasn’t been much change in voter sentiment since the election, there are still some concerns about Russian propaganda being spread online during the election campaign.
Analysts last week claimed that manipulated engagement and the distribution of pro-Russian propaganda by Czech TikTok accounts to millions of viewers “systematically supports anti-system parties.”
The pro-Western ruling party of Moldova’s leadership won a crucial parliamentary election last week, making a decisive decision to stay in Europe’s orbit or to pivot into Moscow’s.
Both Babis and Fiala’s reputations have been tarnished by scandals.
The justice ministry’s decision to accept $44 million in bitcoins from a convicted criminal is causing controversy in Fiala’s government.
According to Forbes magazine, Babis, who was born in Slovakia and is the seventh-wealthy Czech, will be tried for fraud involving EU subsidies worth more than $2 million.
The United States’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza is not the same as the draft proposed by a group of Arab and Muslim countries, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said.
“I made it clear that the 20 points that President (Donald) Trump made public are not ours. Changes were made to our draft. I have the record,” Dar said, speaking to politicians on Friday, according to remarks carried by Dawn news.
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His comments come after the White House on Monday released a plan with fanfare that would include a ceasefire, the return of all captives, Hamas disarmament, and a new political architecture for post-war Gaza – one that would exclude the Palestinian group.
Its release came a few minutes before Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood next to each other at the White House to announce the plan. There, Trump told Hamas it had 72 hours to accept the proposal. On Tuesday, he gave the Palestinian group three to four days to agree to the plan.
Meanwhile, Hamas political bureau member Mohammad Nazzal told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the group was discussing Trump’s plan and would soon announce its position on the proposal. “We are not dealing [with the plan] under the logic that time is a sword pointed at our neck,” Nazzal said.
The published document was presented as a joint effort between Israel, the US and a number of Arab and Muslim countries. Last week, several leaders from the Arab and Muslim world discussed the plan at a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
But while there are no official records of what was discussed at that mini-summit, Axios reported that the proposal announced by the American and Israeli leaders earlier this week contained “significant changes”, requested by Netanyahu, to the draft that had been agreed on by the Arab leaders and Trump.
The amendments were made during a six-hour meeting between Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Netanyahu, the report said. The revised version ties Israel’s withdrawal to Hamas’s disarmament and allows Israel – after a withdrawal in stages – to remain within a buffer zone inside the enclave until there are no risks of any “terror threat”, it added.
A group of eight Arab and Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia, welcomed Trump’s announcement in a joint statement.
Qatar has said that it agrees with the aims of the plan, and seeks further discussions on its details.
“If we speak of the main objectives, there are objectives that it [the US plan] achieves, such as ending the war, and there are things that need clarification, which certainly need discussions and negotiations,” Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told Al Jazeera.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty also said that more talks were needed. According to the US proposal, an international body chaired by Trump would have oversight, while a Palestinian technocratic committee would handle civilian governance until the Palestinian Authority reforms itself. To take care of security, according to the proposal, a stabilisation force would be deployed.
“There are a lot of holes that need to be filled; we need more discussions on how to implement it, especially on two important issues – governance and security arrangements,” Abdelatty said on Thursday.
Experts pointed out that there are sticking points. There are questions on whether Hamas will agree to disarm since it has repeatedly said it would not, as the main face of Palestinian armed resistance.
The current proposal also nods vaguely at how reforms may open a pathway to Palestinian statehood, which is not recognised as a right but as the “aspiration of the Palestinian people”.
The plan does not mention the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza – a significant shift from Trump’s earlier lambasted position when he suggested the relocation of the population outside the enclave to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, which was heavily criticised as ethnic cleansing.
It also ruled out the occupation of Gaza and the annexation of the occupied West Bank – actions that Netanya’s far-right coalition members are pushing for.
Israel has intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla sailing to Gaza and detained hundreds of crew members. The UN’s Francesca Albanese is calling it an abduction. Soraya Lennie asks, does Israel have the legal right to do any of this?
