Trump calls for ceasefire deal in war in Gaza as signs of progress emerge
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here A top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, was set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire, an Israeli official said, and plans were being made for Netanyahu to travel there in the coming weeks, a sign there may be movement on a deal. The official declined to discuss the visit's focus and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been finalised. Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip mourn their deaths at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!" Trump wrote on social media early on Sunday (Sunday night AEST). Trump raised expectations on Friday for a deal, saying there could be an agreement within the next week. Trump has repeatedly called for Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza. An eight-week ceasefire was reached just as he took office earlier this year, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps. Some Palestinians greeted the possibility of a new truce with scepticism after watching the last ceasefire shattered. "Since the beginning of the war, they have been promising us something like this: Release the hostages and we will stop the war," said Abdel Hadi Al-Hour. "They did not stop the war." People take part in a protest demanding the end of the war and immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) Trump also doubled down on his criticism of the legal proceedings against Netanyahu, who is on trial for alleged corruption, calling it "a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT". In the post on Saturday evening (Sunday morning AEST), Trump said the trial interfered with ceasefire talks. He [Netanyahu] is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back," Trump wrote. "How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING." Last week, Trump called for the trial to be cancelled. It was a dramatic interference by an ally in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state. It unnerved many in Israel, despite Trump's popularity there. The trial has repeatedly been postponed at Netanyahu's request, citing security and diplomatic developments. On Sunday, the court agreed to call off two more days of testimony by him scheduled this week. President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters as he meets with Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, Friday, June 27, 2025, in the Oval Office at the White House. (AP) Talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over a major sticking point: whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire agreement. Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi accused Netanyahu of stalling progress on a deal, saying on social media that the Israeli leader insists on a temporary agreement that would free just 10 of the hostages. About 50 hostages remain, with less than half believed to be alive. Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri said "Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war", without addressing Merdawi's claim. Hamas says it is willing to free all the hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the war. Israel rejects that offer, saying it will agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something the group refuses. The war in Gaza began with the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in which militants killed 1200 people and took roughly 250 hostage. Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip mourn their deaths at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Gaza's Health Ministry on Sunday said another 88 people have been killed by Israeli fire over the past 24 hours, raising the war's toll among Palestinians to 56,500. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count but says more than half of the dead are women and children. The war has displaced most of Gaza's population, often multiple times, obliterated much of the territory's urban landscape and left people overwhelmingly reliant on outside aid, which Israel has limited since the end of the latest ceasefire. Fewer than half of Gaza's hospitals are even partly functional, and more than 4000 children need medical evacuation abroad, a new UN humanitarian assessment says. "We are exhausted, we are tired. We hope to God that the war will end," said one Palestinian, Mahmoud Wadi. Palestinians dig through sand looking for belongings after an Israeli strike hit a displacement tent camp in Gaza City, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) The Israeli military ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians in large swaths of northern Gaza, home to hundreds of thousands of people who had returned during the ceasefire earlier this year. Colonel Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on social media. It includes multiple neighbourhoods in eastern and northern Gaza City, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp. The military will expand its escalating attacks westward to the city's centre, calling for people to move toward the Muwasi area in southern Gaza, Adraee said. An Israeli military offensive aims to move Palestinians to southern Gaza so forces can more freely operate to combat militants. Rights groups say their movement would amount to forcible displacement. CONTACT US
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
37 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Donald Trump's brutal warning to ‘communist lunatic' Zohran Mamdani
US President Donald Trump has hit out at New York City Democratic Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Trump's roast came during an interview with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo, where the US president blasted Mamdani. The US president discussed the upcoming New York mayoral election, where he sent a warning to whoever is elected. 'I can tell you this, whoever is mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves or the federal government is coming down very tough on them financially,' Trump said. When asked about Mamdani winning the Democrat primary for New York mayor, Trump unleashed on the Democrat nominee. 'He's a communist, I think it's very bad for New York, I don't know that he's going to get in, it's inconceivable, he's a communist and he's a pure communist, I think he admits it,' Trump said. 'Let's say this if he does get in, I'm going to be president, and he's going to have to do the right thing or they're not getting any money. 'He's got to do the right thing; it's shocking that I would have assumed … I used to say that we would never have a socialist in this country… he's a communist, he's going to be mayor of New York.
Sydney Morning Herald
42 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump's irresistible force flattens immovable objects
In a stunning display of political disarmament, the NATO member nations (except for Spain) capitulated to Trump's demands for a massive increase in their defence spending as a percentage of each country's GDP. NATO chief Mark Rutte wrote to Trump, 'You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done'. Trump got that one up immediately on Truth Social. Trump had mellowed further by the time he went home. 'These people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them.' Loading If anything, Trump is an irresistible force. But he has not yet met an immovable object – not in Congress, not in the courts, not in the media, not in the bureaucracy and not in NATO or in Denmark's Greenland, or at the Panama Canal. Trump has reopened his massive trade war with Canada. Trump has not given up on those imperial acquisitions he hungers for. In the wake of all this, how will Trump treat Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australia when they meet in person? Trump will be fully briefed on Albanese's posture against NATO's percentage-of-GDP number for defence, on Australia's votes against Israel in the United Nations, on Australia's support for the International Court of Justice, on the PM's equivocation on whether the Iran strikes violated international law. Trump knows Musk, Meta, Google and Amazon are infuriated by Australia's social media controls and local news content payment laws, and want them scrapped. It would never occur to Trump, if he wants more success in his trade wars, to say to those countries who are not playing ball, 'You want a better deal with me? Well, take a look at Australia. They have a trade deficit with us. I reward them with minimal tariffs. You want to escape the weapons I use on trade? Be more like Australia.' Trump is incapable of saying that. He will prefer instead to put tariffs on Australia's pharmaceuticals. At week's end, the Supreme Court further ratified Trump's extraordinary executive powers. The court has now barred federal judges from imposing nationwide injunctions on suspect executive orders. The court is likely to reinterpret the precise words in the constitution that provide citizenship on anyone born in the United States. States may well be able to say whether a child born in their borders is a US citizen – or stateless. Trump's assaults on the media are more brutal than ever. He hated CNN's Iran coverage. 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should immediately be reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog'.' Trump is demanding that Congress defund public media – PBS and NPR, 'the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country'. The Senate will vote on that in July. Trump is injecting a sepsis-like infection of political expression. Trump shocked the world with his F-bomb. It capped a decade of his resort to obscenities, denigrations and defamatory rants. The United States now lives in a race to the bottom of an echo chamber of vulgarity. California governor Gavin Newsom last week attacked Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' pending in Congress: 'The Republican One Big Bullshit Bill proves that we've known all along. They don't care about you.' So the BS word is now lingua franca with the F-bomb. That legislation – which embodies Trump's entire domestic policy agenda – really is too big to fail. Losing his megabill in a Congress controlled by his Republican Party would be a political catastrophe for Trump. Musk headbutted Trump: the bill is 'utterly insane and destructive'. Up to a dozen Republicans in both chambers are not prepared to vote yes. If they actually hold out to the end, that would be Trump's Waterloo. This July 4 is the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. One thing is clear to Americans: King George III and the British Redcoats did not know what the F--- they were doing. You understand?
Perth Now
42 minutes ago
- Perth Now
x
Last year America ran a budget deficit of 7 per cent of GDP. It may soon be even bigger. President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now working its way through Congress, permanently extends tax cuts introduced in 2017, offers more to hospitality workers and old folk, and boosts payments to poor children. The proposed legislation amounts to trillions of dollars of extra borrowing over the next decade. Mr Trump's showmanship attracts attention — but America is not alone. Governments across the rich world are increasingly profligate. This year France will run a deficit worth 6 per cent of GDP; Britain's will be only a little smaller. The German government will borrow the equivalent of 3 per cent of GDP. Canada's budget balance is also moving into the red. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a bureaucrat under Louis XIV, remarked that the essence of tax policy involved 'plucking as many feathers from the goose with the least hissing'. Today's governments do not pluck the goose. Like producers of foie gras, they stuff it. Governments have long run deficits. France, the land of foie gras, has not seen a surplus since 1974. And a government can simultaneously borrow money and become less indebted, if the economy grows faster than debt accumulates. What is happening today, however, is unprecedented. Deficit levels would not be unusual if the economy were in recession. In fact, rich-world GDP is growing decently. The unemployment rate is near an all-time low. Corporations' profit growth is healthy. Meanwhile, borrowing costs have jumped. The average rich-world government, weighted by GDP, now borrows for ten years at a 3.7 per cent annual interest rate, up from 1 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these circumstances, many textbooks would advise, at the very least, cutting your deficit. Today's governments prefer to double down. Many are promising to raise defence spending. Although that may be unavoidable, the same is not true of other decisions. In Japan political parties are offering fiscal sweeteners, ranging from cash handouts to consumption-tax cuts, ahead of an election to the upper house of parliament. The British government recently undid cash-saving measures it had imposed only a few months before, restoring payments to old people to help with energy bills. South Korea is cutting inheritance tax. Australia is cutting income tax. Even once-prudent countries are getting in on the act. The German government is planning to borrow €800 billion ($143b) to invest in defence and infrastructure. 'By German standards, this truly is 'whatever it takes' fiscal policy,' say analysts at Deutsche Bank. Switzerland, which before the pandemic ran a large budget surplus, now has a small one. Next year the country will introduce a 13th month of state-pension payments. The silver-haireds enjoying a late lunch on the banks of the Rhine do not appear to be on the breadline. These days, though, everyone gets a handout. Why are governments so spendthrift? During the pandemic politicians developed a habit of bailing out businesses and households. High inflation then spurred demands for payments to alleviate a cost-of-living crisis Today many incumbents hope to ward off populists by throwing around money. When a politician suggests a cut, 24-hour news and social media ensure that everyone hears a sob story. Fiscal responsibility is more toxic than ever before. Until recently, it was painless for governments to run loose fiscal policy. In 2021-23 nominal GDP was growing reasonably fast, inflation was high and interest rates were low. Under these conditions, the average rich-world government could run sizeable primary deficits (ie, before interest payments) and still cut their debt load. Some countries, such as Japan, could reduce their debt-to-GDP ratio even if they ran a primary deficit of 12 per cent of GDP. As such, two-thirds of rich-world governments are less indebted today than five years ago. Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen by 24 percentage points. Greece's has fallen by 68 points. Today growth and inflation are down, and interest rates are up. We calculate that, for the average rich country to cut its debt, it must now balance its primary budget. For some, the fiscal arithmetic has radically altered. Italy's debt-reducing primary balance has swung from a deficit of 3.1 per cent of GDP in 2023 to a surplus of 1.3 per cent of GDP. The Italians are shrinking their budget deficit, but not by enough. With many other governments making even less progress, and a trade war promising a growth slowdown, rich-world public debt is likely to start rising. This is bad timing. Demographers have known for decades that the mid-2020s would be the point at which baby-boomers would begin to retire in droves, prompting demand for health care and pensions to surge. In 2015 Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility, a watchdog, suggested that even under benign conditions, now was the point at which the government would struggle to avoid accumulating debt. A demographic crunch and free-spending fiscal policies are therefore about to interact in unpleasant ways. No one can predict if or when investors will lose patience, forcing interest rates much higher. Yet there must be a limit to the debt binge. As any lover of foie gras knows, overfeeding even the greediest goose can cause its liver to explode.
