Donald Trump has warned Hamas to act fast during a pause in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza to release hostages and complete negotiations that could potentially end two years of hostilities.
“I will not tolerate delay,” the US president wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. “Hamas must move quickly, or all bets are off.”
He later said that Israel had agreed to redeploy its troops in Gaza to an “initial line”. If the militant group confirms its agreement, the ceasefire will be effective immediately and the exchange of hostages can begin.
On Friday Trump called on Israel to halt its military offensive immediately in the besieged enclave after Hamas announced that it would free every hostage and enter negotiations on some of the more complex elements of his 20-point peace plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed last week to most of the plan, with some caveats.
In a televised address on Saturday night, Netanyahu said: “We’re on the verge of a very big achievement . . . I hope that in the coming days I will be able to announce the return of all our hostages, the live and dead, in one phase, and as the [Israeli military] remain deep in Gaza.”
The rapid turn in events has raised hopes of ending a war, which has devastated Gaza and triggered a regional conflict, as well as the return of 20 living hostages, and the bodies of 28 more, to their families.
US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was involved in drafting the proposals, were en route to Cairo on Saturday to help negotiate details of the plan’s implementation, a White House official said.
Netanyahu said he was sending a negotiating team led by his confidant Ron Dermer, the strategic affairs minister, to the talks that start on Monday to “finalise the technical details of the hostage release”.
“Our intention, and the intention of our American friends, is to limit this negotiation to a few days,” Netanyahu said.
The Israeli military moved rapidly overnight to scale back its military offensive in the strip, including its large-scale operation to conquer Gaza City, the enclave’s largest population centre.
By Saturday afternoon, troops within Gaza were in a “defensive posture”, an Israeli security official speaking on the condition of anonymity said. Air strikes had also been paused, too, except for extremely high value targets or imminent threats to Israeli soldiers, the official said. The IDF declined to comment.
A second Israeli official said the military would still use force to protect its troops and would conduct “necessary offensive operations”.
Palestinians reported scattered explosions in Gaza City on Saturday morning, as well as in the northern and southern edges of the strip.
“The bombing in the west of the city intensified overnight until around dawn,” said Ahmed, speaking by phone from Gaza City’s old quarter.
The Israeli military already controls more than 40 per cent of the city. It warned on Saturday that much of it was still an active combat zone, telling Palestinians that, for their “safety”, they should avoid returning north.
Netanyahu released a statement overnight embracing the first phase of the Trump plan, which requires all the hostages to be released within 72 hours of an agreement, without discussing the more complex and politically challenging next steps, which could threaten the survival of his coalition.
By Saturday night, two crucial far-right allies in Netanyahu’s government criticised large parts of the incipient peace deal but stopped short of threatening to topple the government.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the decision to halt the military offensive a “grave mistake”, warning that it would only erode Israel’s position.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, said he had warned Netanyahu that if after all the hostages were released but “the Hamas terrorist organisation continues to exist”, his Jewish Power party would pull out of the government and not take part in what he termed a “national defeat that would be a global disgrace.”
According to the Trump plan, additional issues include a permanent ceasefire, a possible amnesty for Hamas members who renounce violence, the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops and the handover of the territory to a committee of Palestinian technocrats and a foreign stabilisation force.
The ceasefire will also require Israel to allow the UN to increase food and medical aid to the enclave’s 2mn population, most of whom have endured widespread hunger, disease and repeated displacements under Israel’s offensive.
Israel will also be required to release about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, 250 of whom are serving life sentences, and allow reconstruction material into Gaza.
Israel and Hamas have swapped thousands of Palestinians for dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages in shortlived ceasefires since October 7, 2023, when Hamas sparked the war, killing 1,200 people in Israel and taking some 250 hostages. According to local officials, the Israeli military has killed at least 67,000 Palestinians and devastated most of the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas are expected to want to renegotiate elements of the plan, some of the details of which are vague, especially the timeline and conditions under which Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza.
Qatar said it had begun working with Egypt, the other main Arab mediator, and the US “to continue discussions on the plan in order to ensure a path towards ending the war”.
Hamas’s surprise decision to enter negotiations came hours after Trump issued the Sunday deadline to agree to his plan or else “all hell . . . will break out”.
A person briefed on the talks said the main issues Hamas wanted to negotiate included details of the Israeli troop withdrawal from the strip and the international stabilisation force the plan envisages deploying there.
Pressed about Trump’s demand that the militant group immediately disarm, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera, the Qatari TV network, that it would only hand over its weapons “if the occupation ends and Palestinians can govern themselves”.
