As Hamas mulls U.S.-backed ceasefire proposals, here's what's at stake for the Gaza and Israel
President Donald Trump told reporters at the Oval Office Friday that the deal which would pause hostilities for 60 days, allow the phased release of hostages, and pave the way for more humanitarian aid to flow into the devastated enclave, was 'very close.'
The White House confirmed Thursday that Israel had accepted the proposals, but Hamas have responded coolly. Jihad Taha, a spokesperson for the militant group, told Al Jazeera late Friday that the proposals lacked 'any immediate commitment to stop the war,' a key Hamas demand. But he said Hamas leaders were 'seriously' discussing the proposals.
NBC News looks at what's at stake:
What does the deal include?
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, shared a framework of the agreement with NBC News, which calls for an immediate 60-day halt in fighting, during which Hamas would release 33 Israeli captives in exchange for 'a number of Palestinian prisoners.' In return, Israel would 'halt all military operations' in Gaza as soon as the truce takes effect, and civilians would be allowed to return to their homes across the enclave.
Under the terms of the framework Israeli forces would withdraw in two phases — first from densely populated areas, then from urban centers — with full withdrawal to be completed by the end of the ceasefire period.
During the truce it says, 'negotiations will continue to reach an agreement on the release of Israeli soldiers in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners.'
The agreement would also allow for the entry of 600 trucks per day carrying humanitarian aid, including fuel, cooking gas, and medical supplies.
Among the other proposals are that all border crossings between Gaza and Israel, and Gaza and Egypt, will also be reopened under international supervision, and patients and students will be allowed to travel abroad.
Will it lead to an end to the war?
While Hamas is yet to reject the agreement outright, differences that have derailed previous ceasefire efforts appear to remain.
The latest proposals lay the groundwork for a temporary pause in the fighting, but offer no guarantee of a permanent end to the war.
Hamas has signaled openness to talks but insists any lasting deal must include a complete cessation of hostilities and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel meanwhile, has demanded that Hamas disarm, dismantle its military and governing infrastructure, and return all 58 remaining hostages before agreeing to end the war. Hamas has rejected those terms.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.
Since then, more than 54,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave, which has been run by Hamas since 2007.
The 'hungriest place on earth'
More than 4,000 people have been killed in the Strip since Israel shattered its ceasefire with Hamas in early March and imposed a blockade preventing food, fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza. The country's military launched a major new operation dubbed 'Gideon's Chariot,' which began earlier this month.
The latest proposals to end the fighting come as the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs called Gaza ' the hungriest place on earth, ' as Israeli continues to let only a trickle of aid into the enclave following an 11-week-long blockade that barred the entry of food and medicine into the enclave.
'The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket,' OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reports in Geneva on Friday. Accusing Israel of 'drip-feeding' food into the area, and said aid trucks were being surrounded 'by desperate people who want to feed their families.'
'I don't blame them for aid that essentially is already theirs, but it's not distributed in the way we wanted,' he added.
Is aid getting into Gaza?
The U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations this week days after Israel lifted its blockade, despite criticism from humanitarian groups who warned that they undermined a long-running humanitarian framework in Gaza and risked compromising the independence of aid operations.
They also expressed significant concern over a plan laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to see aid distributed at sites in southern Gaza, effectively forcibly displacing Palestinians there.
In an update Saturday GHF said it had distributed 30 truckloads of food 'providing approximately 1,663,200 meals.' It added that Saturday's 'meal distribution was the largest to date and five times more than yesterday.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
OPEC+ agrees in principle another large oil output hike, sources say
LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - OPEC+ agreed in principle to boost oil output by 548,000 barrels per day in September, two OPEC+ sources said on Sunday as the group finishes unwinding its biggest tranche of production cuts amid fears of further supply disruptions from Russia. A decision is expected at a meeting scheduled to begin at 1100 GMT, amid fresh U.S. demands for India to stop buying Russian oil as Washington seeks ways to push Moscow for a peace deal with Ukraine. Fresh EU sanctions have also pushed Indian state refiners to suspend Russian oil purchases. OPEC+, which pumps about half of the world's oil, had been curtailing production for several years to support the market. But it reversed course this year to regain market share, and as U.S. President Donald Trump demanded OPEC pump more oil. OPEC+ began output increases in April with a modest hike of 138,000 bpd, followed by larger hikes of 411,000 bpd in May, June and July and 548,000 bpd in August. If the group agrees to the 548,000-bpd September increase, it will have fully unwound its previous production cut of 2.2 million bpd, while allowing the United Arab Emirates to raise output by 300,000 bpd. OPEC+ still has in place a separate, voluntary cut of about 1.65 million bpd from eight members and a 2-million-bpd cut across all members, which expire at the end of 2026. Sources have said previously the group had no plans to discuss other tranches of cuts on Sunday.
Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump is wrong to pick a fight with Powell – but is right about interest rates
Visiting Scotland last week, Donald Trump used a joint press conference to mock Keir Starmer. He castigated Labour's policies on immigration, energy and much else. The Prime Minister sat awkwardly, sporting his trademark rictus grin. Trump has lately dished out plenty of public humiliation – not least aimed at Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve. The president has put huge pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates, to boost US growth and ease interest payments on America's massive $36trn (£27.6trn) national debt. This jars badly with the conventional wisdom that central banks should be independent, allowing technocrat economists to set interest rates to bear down on inflation. That's far better for the economy in the long-run, but this precious independence is jeopardised when vote-hungry politicians seek to keep borrowing costs too low. Such independence has become an almost sacred policy concept over the last half century. And no central bank matters more than the Fed, which sets the course for monetary policy across the globe. Yet Trump, astonishingly, has lately called Powell a 'numbskull', a 'stubborn mule' and worse. On a recent Fed visit, he rebuked him over the cost of a refurbishment project – a potential pretext to sack Powell, which may not be legally possible, but which Trump often floats regardless. Between September and December last year, the Fed's committee of twelve rate-setters voted to lower the US benchmark interest rate three times from its post-Covid-peak of 5.25pc-5.5pc, in increments down to 4.25pc-4.5pc. But much to the president's frustration, rates have since stayed put. The Bank of England, meanwhile, has cut rates four times since last summer, including as recently as May, while the European Central Bank has enacted no less than eight eurozone rate reductions over the same period, the latest in June. Having held rates since the start of 2025, the Fed just did so again when governors met last Wednesday (although two Trump-appointees voted against, the biggest intra-Fed rate disagreement in thirty years). Fed policymakers are rightly worried about price pressures, with headline inflation hitting 3.7pc during the year to June, up from 2.4pc the previous month and well above the 2pc target. And Trump's era-defining slew of tariffs – taxes on imports into the US – means we could see a lot more inflation yet. With the President's three-month moratorium expiring this weekend, and tariffs now set to bite on some of America's largest trading partners, the Fed is understandably concerned. Powell insists the US economy is strong enough for the Fed to wait before further rate cuts, as we see if Trump's tariffs really do aggravate inflation. And last week's GDP numbers – a 3pc expansion from April to June – was certainly way above consensus forecasts, reversing a 0.5pc contraction during the first three months of the year, the worst quarterly performance since early 2022. This January to March shrinkage, though, was largely due to the huge rise in US imports as buyers sought to get ahead of Trump's expected tariff onslaught. And since 'liberation day' in April, when the President unveiled his tariffs on the White House lawn, imports into the US have plunged. This artificially boosted April to June GDP growth as the first-quarter trend unwound. Yes, consumer spending rose 1.4pc during the second quarter, outpacing the 0.5pc increase over the previous three months, supporting Powell's argument the economy is coping without further rate cuts. But 'final sales to private domestic purchasers', a key demand metric that the Fed watches closely, grew just 1.2pc over the latest quarter, slower than the 1.9pc increase between January and March. High mortgage rates are also holding back the housing market and related construction, as Trump relentlessly points out, with residential investment down 4.6pc during the second quarter. But that's part of a broader investment slump as business leaders look to see how the president's tariffs play out. For now, the market consensus is that the US economy is showing resilience, but more rate cuts may be justified as long as inflation isn't further provoked. So Trump's attacks on Powell are based on legitimate economic analysis. Yet his language is way over the top. Some say the president is picking headline-grabbing fights with the Fed chair to detract from mounting criticism over his handling of the Epstein files. I suspect he simply wants lower rates and, for now at least, Powell stands in his way. Ironically, it was Trump who appointed Powell in 2017. But having repeatedly called for him to resign, the president seems certain to replace him when Powell's term expires next May. In the meantime, Trump's ceaseless undermining of central bank independence is deeply damaging. Yes, the Fed has a 'dual mandate' to pursue both price stability and full employment, unlike the solely inflation-focussed aims of most other central banks. But while Trump's arguments may be technically valid, it should absolutely not be him making them, nor anyone else near the top of government. Given the tone he has set, though, Powell's successor will be seen as the president's lackey. And with US and global inflation far from tamed, that could end up being a serious problem. My general view is that central bank independence is far more important than any individual central banker. Andrew Bailey, for instance, has shown seriously bad judgement at the Bank of England – endlessly insisting post-Covid inflation would be 'transitory', for instance, while deriding those of us who correctly predicted otherwise. His appointment was a mistake, but he should stay, free from the threat politicians might remove him, until his term expires in March 2028. The same applies to Powell and far more so – he should serve his full term.
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Hamas releases second video of Israeli hostage and says it will not disarm until Palestinian state established
Hamas has reaffirmed that it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established, as the group released its second video in two days of an Israeli hostage. Responding to one of the key Israeli demands to end the war in Gaza, Hamas – which has dominated the territory since 2007 – said it could not yield its right to 'armed resistance' unless an 'independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital' is established. Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of hostages ended last week in deadlock. On Saturday, Hamas released a second video of hostage Evyatar David. In it, David is skeletally thin and is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave. Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials, stoking international demands for a ceasefire. UN-backed food security experts said this week that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' is now playing out in Gaza. Hamas has included this issue in their hostage videos, warning that the hostages are going hungry alongside their captors and that time is running out for a ceasefire. In a statement, the family of David demanded that the aid that is now getting into Gaza thanks to renewed UN convoys and foreign airdrops must also reach their son. 'They are on the absolute brink of death,' his brother Ilay said at a rally in support of the hostages in Tel Aviv, where thousands gathered holding posters of those in captivity and chanted for their immediate release. Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Donald Trump's Middle East envoy on Saturday told families of hostages that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza. Steve Witkoff, who arrived in Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu's government faced global outcry over the devastation in Gaza and the starvation growing among its 2.2 million people, met the prime minister on Thursday. On Friday he visited an aid distribution site run by the Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Global outrage has grown over Israel's restrictions on aid and the deadly unrest surrounding the GHF sites, with daily reports of shootings at all four locations since the group took over aid distribution at the end of May. The UN says 859 Palestinians have been killed during that time in the vicinity of these sites, and more than 500 have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli fire killed more than a dozen people on Saturday, eight of them while trying to get food. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease the access to it. Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, including a child, the territory's health ministry said on Saturday. This brings the total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. The German government, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, joined calls for Israel to deliver more aid on Saturday, saying that the current amount remains 'very insufficient'. France's foreign minister also called for humanitarian aid to be supplied to the people of Gaza in massive quantities, while also denouncing as 'despicable' videos of Israeli hostages held in Gaza posted by Hamas's armed wing. With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
