Cairo (AP) – Qatar on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump’s peace plan Hamas weighed the response and sought to end the nearly two-year war in Gaza. In Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians, a local hospital said.
Qatar’s comments, a major mediator, appeared to reflect the Arab state’s complaints about the text of the 20-point plan issued by the White House after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that he had agreed to it.
Three Arab officials told The Associated Press that changes have been made to the initial proposal that the Arab and Muslim countries worked with Trump – changes in favor of Israel. Officials from local authority involved in the consultation spoke on condition of anonymity and discussed behind the scenes diplomacy.
The depth of the Arab countries’ dissatisfaction is not clear and they continue to express broad support for the plan. However, Qatar’s comments showed on Tuesday that Trump could ask reporters to ask for further negotiations on some of its terms, despite Hamas saying “three or four days” to respond to “three or four days.”
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Arab intermediaries and Turkish officials will meet with Hamas representatives in Doha on Tuesday to discuss the plans, said Majed Al Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In this plan, Hamas demands that the hostages be released, and Gaza leave power and be disarmed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and the end of the battle. The plan guarantees the flow of humanitarian assistance and promises reconstruction. But it does not set a path to a Palestinian state. In the near future, Gaza and its over 2 million Palestinians will be under international governance through the so-called “peace commission” led by Trump and the former. British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Qatar says there’s more discussion needed
Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani said the 20 points released by the US “principles… we need a detailed discussion and a way of working through them.”
Speaking to Qatar-based television network Al Jazeera, he pointed to the issue of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from Gaza, saying “There’s a need for clarification.”
The program’s text stated that Israeli forces would only withdraw because the planned international security forces could replace them. It also showed that Israel would continue to control the territorial belt around the Gaza border.
On Monday night, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other countries said they wanted to take up the final version, which includes a “full Israeli withdrawal” and a clear path to a Palestinian state that integrates the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
An Arab official who spoke with the Associated Press expressed his dissatisfaction with the White House’s 20 points. “This is not something we agreed to,” he said. “This is Netanyahu’s plan.”
Palestinians are skeptical
Many Palestinians in the destroyed coastal enclave are wary of the proposal. For some, international governance hampered the colonial British mission that ruled Palestine from 1920 to 1948.
“They want to impose their own peace,” said Um Mohammed, a history teacher who was evacuated with their families in Gaza. “In fact, this is not a peace plan. It is a surrender plan. It brings us back to the age of colonialism.”
Mahmoud Abu Baker, a Palestinian who evacuated Rafa, said the proposal supports Israel and implements all of its requests without concessions.
“The (suggestion) tells us that as Palestinians and Arabs we are not qualified to control ourselves, and that white people will control us,” he said.
Israeli hostage families see hope
The proposal for peace has torn the Israeli hostage families that Hamas still holds between heightened hope and realism that signs of past progress have fallen apart. Hamas is believed to hold 48 hostages, of which 20 are believed to be alive by Israel. And under the plan, they will be released within 72 hours of both parties accepting the transaction.
“For two years, my husband Elkana has been waiting in endless pain,” said Livka Bobot, wife of hostage Elkana Bobot, in a statement released by the Hostage and Missing Family Forum.
“Now, I demand that these impressive words be transformed into even bigger and more impressive actions — actions that bring hostages home,” she said.
The Israelis expressed skepticism by visiting the memorial to the music festival where 364 people were killed during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
“Everyone pins their hopes (trump),” said Amit Zander, whose daughter Noah Xander was killed at the festival. “It’s up to Hamas. Israel wants it. Beyond that, it’s no longer in our hands.”
More than 30 Palestinians have been killed
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces fired, killing 17 Palestinians and wounding 33 while trying to access humanitarian assistance in central Gaza. The Israeli military said the troops were fired when individuals approached their position “in a way that put them at risk.”
Strikes in central Israel and South Gaza have killed 19 people, according to local hospitals.
One of the strikers struck a tent that lives with a family member who fled Gaza City earlier this month, killing seven people, including four women and children. Another person has died, said his seven-month pregnant wife and her young child, Nasser Hospital, in the southern part of Khan Yunis.
Israeli forces said in a statement that over the past 24 hours, the army has killed several armed extremists and attacked more than 160 targets in Hamas’ infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts.
Hospitals were overwhelmed as Palestinians fled Gaza city
Hospitals in southern Gaza are preparing for flooding of Palestinian refugees who fled Gaza city in the face of attacks that Israel has piled up there. According to the United Nations, about 450,000 people have already evacuated from the north since mid-August, with hundreds of thousands remaining in Gaza, where starvation has been declared.
“We don’t have enough materials. We don’t have enough medicines. The number of people coming down from Gaza, especially the ones that have started to overwhelm the facilities that have been already full for a while.
He said over the past few weeks, thousands of injured people have arrived from the north, many have been filthy wounds due to the long journey. Others showed serious signs of malnutrition, he said.
Field Hospitals in the UK MED Operations are expanding the 90-bed Capacity Field Hospital to include more than 110 beds, he said. Nasser Hospital, a major general health facility in southern Gaza, is already overwhelmed and is about to expand its capacity of 300 beds.
He added that in Nasser, 150 people have often been injured in just an hour in the past three months.
“It’s like a conveyor belt of death and injuries watching them come through the bigger hospital here in Nasser,” he said.
Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 170,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish civilians and extremists from their victims, but said women and children account for half of the deaths.
The campaign was triggered by Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, with extremists killed around 1,200 people and sought 250 people. Most of the hostages have been released under previous ceasefire deals.
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Ridman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press Writer Sarael Dib from Beirut contributed to the report.
