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The President’s martial rhetoric against fellow-Americans is a striking contrast with his push for an end to hostilities in Gaza.
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Susan B. Glasser
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Tag: Gaza
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Trump, the Self-Styled “President of PEACE” Abroad, Makes War at Home
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News Analysis: With Gaza deal, praise and peril for Trump
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WASHINGTON — At a moment when hope for peace seemed lost, senior U.S. officials, led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in 2012 that would be touted for years as a historic diplomatic achievement. She would later campaign on her strategic prowess for the presidency against Donald Trump.
In 2014, a similar ceasefire was brokered between the two parties during yet another war by Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, also seen at the time as a diplomatic coup. But in the first 72 hours of that ceasefire, without clarity on the precise lines of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas operatives ambushed an Israeli Defense Forces patrol decommissioning a tunnel, throwing peace in doubt. The remains of the Israeli soldier caught in that raid have been held by Hamas ever since.
History shows that Trump’s achievement this week, brokering a new truce between Israel and Hamas after their most devastating war yet, is filled with opportunity and peril for the president.
A lasting ceasefire could cement him a legacy as a peacemaker, long sought by Trump, who has harnessed President Nixon’s madman theory of diplomacy to coerce several other warring parties into ceasefires and settlements. But the record of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows that consistent interest and engagement by the president may be necessary to ensure any peace can hold.
Hamas and Israel agreed on Wednesday to implement the first phase of Trump’s proposed 20-point peace plan, exchanging all remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel in exchange for 1,700 detainees from Gaza, as well as 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israel.
Only the first phase has been agreed to thus far.
Guns are expected to fall silent Friday, followed by a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces that would initially leave roughly half of the Gaza Strip — along its periphery bordering Israel — within Israeli military control. A 72-hour clock would then begin after the partial withdrawal is complete, counting down to the hostage release.
Achieving this alone is a significant victory for Trump, who leveraged deep ties with Arab partners built over his first administration and political clout among the Israeli right and with its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to bring the deal to a close.
The president’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had been working toward a ceasefire for months, starting back during the presidential transition period nearly one year ago. He found little success on his own.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio writes a note before handing it to President Trump during a White House meeting Wednesday.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
It was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who designed the Abraham Accords in Trump’s first term and maintains close ties with Netanyahu and Arab governments, took an unofficial yet active role in a recent diplomatic push that helped secure an agreement, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
“None of this would have happened without Jared,” the source said.
Speaking with reporters from the White House, Trump took a victory lap over the truce, claiming not only credit for a hostage and ceasefire deal but the historic achievement of a broader Middle East peace.
“We ended the war in Gaza and really, on a much bigger basis, created peace. And I think it’s going to be a lasting peace — hopefully an everlasting peace. Peace in the Middle East,” Trump said.
“We secured the release of all of the remaining hostages,” he added. “And they should be released on Monday or Tuesday — getting them is a complicated process. I’d rather not tell you what they have to do to get them. They’re in places you don’t want to be.”
An opening emerged for a diplomatic breakthrough after Israel conducted an extraordinary strike on a Hamas target in Doha, shaking the confidence of the Qatari government, a key U.S. ally. While Doha has hosted Hamas’ political leadership for years, Qatar’s leadership thought their relationship with Washington would protect them from Israeli violations of its territory.
Trump sought a deal with Qatar, a U.S. official said, that would assure them with security guarantees in exchange for delivering Hamas leadership on a hostage deal. Separately, Egypt — which has intelligence and sourcing capabilities in Gaza seen by the U.S. government as second only to Israel’s — agreed to apply similar pressure, the official said.
“There’s an argument here, that presumably the Qataris are making to Hamas — which is that they lost, this round anyway, and that it’s going to take them a very long time to rebuild. But the war must come to an end for the rebuilding to start,” said Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat from the Reagan, George W. Bush and first Trump administrations.
“On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced, and he won’t get it,” Abrams said, adding that, if the deal falls through, “I think the Israelis are going to be saying to him, ‘This is a game. They didn’t really accept your plan.’”
“I don’t think, in the end, he’ll blame the Israelis for ruining the deal,” Abrams continued. “I think he’ll blame Hamas.”
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Michael Wilner
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Israeli far-right minister Ben-Gvir vows to vote against Gaza deal
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Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his party have announced they plan to vote against an agreement on the first phase of a plan to end the Gaza conflict.
In a post on X Thursday evening, he wrote that the reason was “the release of thousands of terrorists, including 250 murderers who are expected to be freed from prisons. This is an unbearably heavy price.”
The Israeli government is expected to approve the deal on Thursday evening and a clear majority in favour of the agreement is expected.
In return for the release of the remaining hostages, Israel is to release around 250 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment from Israeli prisons. In addition, around 1,700 people imprisoned after October 7, 2023 are to be released.
Ben-Gvir also repeated his threat to quit the government if Hamas retained influence in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has assured him this will not happen.
The plan foresees Gaza being administered by a transitional government of Palestinian technocrats under international supervision once the war ends.
Hamas has signalled its acceptance of the proposal, though it has not clarified whether it agrees to the demand that it play no role in Gaza’s governance. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has likewise said his party will oppose the agreement.
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Why Hamas Agreed to Release the Hostages
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Yes, the arguments went from, as you said, “Well, actually, the school or hospital had to be bombed for military reasons, and it was a legitimate military target” to, on the starvation issue, just outright denial. There was a little of “We don’t want to give Hamas food,” but really the argument was “People just aren’t starving.” It was just denial of reality.
Yes, it was about Hamas propaganda. It got to the point where even Donald Trump said, Sorry, you can’t fake this. This is real starvation. You can’t fake this sort of thing. So I think that really moved people, and once you realize that Israel maybe isn’t this light unto the world that you had been raised to believe it was, I think that changes something—and it’s irreversible. So you don’t see the effects now, but over time we’re definitely going to see the effects in terms of the politics, and eventually the policy. Now, that’s only if our democracies mean anything,
So we won’t see it.
If we go the authoritarian path, then, yeah.
In the past week, it felt to me that, when it became clear that Hamas was going to give up the hostages, the momentum shifted in favor of this deal getting done, and even Netanyahu could not back away. I’m curious why Hamas did not just give up the hostages a while ago. Let’s put aside the moral case. I don’t think Hamas was too concerned about that. But, in a practical sense, I don’t totally understand why they didn’t try this strategy. It felt as if the hostages weren’t gaining them that much. And so much of the case for the war continuing was about the hostages, even when it was clear to people paying attention that the Israeli government and Netanyahu did not care about the hostages. It was the only justification the Israelis had left.
I also wondered about that. It became clear in my mind, too, that if the hostages are their sole piece of leverage, well, it’s really not much leverage anymore, because Netanyahu has made it clear he’d much rather have his forever war than the hostages. So why don’t they just call his bluff and say, “O.K., here are all the hostages”? They could have done that. I don’t know why they didn’t. Maybe they just never came to that conclusion—they probably still clung to the idea that this was their last piece of leverage, and if they gave it up, then they’d literally have nothing, and maybe they thought that would look like surrender. I don’t know. But I think you’re right. I don’t think it really was leverage anymore. It was just this talking point for the Israelis. The whole discourse was so cynical.
Do you have any optimistic take on what this deal will mean for Gaza in the medium term? I hope that the short-term truce will mean food and aid entering in much more sufficient quantities, but beyond that do you have any hope?
I think it’s going to be a very difficult road ahead. I haven’t been on the ground in Gaza in the past two years, but, from everything that I’ve seen and read, it’s going to be hard. I don’t know that Gaza is even a place where humans can continue to live in any meaningful way. Almost everything has been destroyed. There’s almost nothing left, even of Gaza City. All the hospitals are basically not functioning. There are no universities. There are no schools. There are no roads. There’s no sewage-treatment plants, and there’s no infrastructure. Everything has been destroyed. What will it take to rebuild? Obviously, it will take massive resources, and I just don’t know if they’re going to be there. There might be some kind of donor conference and all kinds of pledges, but will those materialize? If history is any indication, probably only a fraction will actually be put up.
I worry that, in the medium to long term, people will just leave. If people are able to leave, those who can will leave, and who could blame them? People just want to have normal lives. They will be saying, “I have no business and my home is gone. My workplace is gone. There’s no place to send my kids to school.” So it would not surprise me at all if we saw a kind of exodus over the next several years, just because people have to live. They will go wherever they are allowed to go. I’m sure a lot of European countries and the United States will close their doors to people fleeing Gaza, but they’ll go wherever they can.
So I just don’t know that Gaza can recover. It makes me incredibly sad to say that, because we’re talking about a society of two million people. Gaza City is the largest city in Palestine. It’s one of the oldest places on earth. There’s just so much that has been lost. Beyond just the basic immediate subsistence, can Gaza survive? I don’t know.
And what about the possibility of Hamas disarming, and Israel really pulling back its troops?
Those two are linked. They’re very much connected. It’ll be very hard to disarm Hamas under any circumstances, because that is its raison d’être. It is a resistance movement, and to give up its weapons before there’s an end to Israel’s occupation, before the Palestinians have achieved a state, looks like surrender. So that, on its face, is going to be very difficult, but it will be especially hard when we know that there’s going to be an indefinite Israeli military presence on the ground in most of Gaza—or at least very significant parts of it, right up to the edges of the population centers, assuming that people are allowed to go back to the north.
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Isaac Chotiner
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Hope and Grief in Israel After the Gaza Ceasefire Deal
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On Thursday, shortly after 1 A.M. in Israel, a sleepy screening of documentaries by recent film graduates on Channel 12 was interrupted by breaking news. An anchor announced that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas had just been reached. The broadcast cut to the White House; footage showed President Donald Trump holding a roundtable event with conservative influencers, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio handed him a slip of paper.
It was a handwritten note, caught by the Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, that said “very close.” Both words were underlined. “We need you to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first,” the message went on. Not long after, it was official. “This is the post we’ve likely all been waiting for,” the Israeli anchor said. She went on to read, in Hebrew, Trump’s statement: “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” it began. “This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”
News of a ceasefire had been expected ever since Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, held a joint press conference last week to announce their support for a White House proposal to end the war, and Hamas responded in a way that was marketed by Trump as a yes. But now it was official: the hostages would return home on Monday. It was as though Israelis drew in a collective breath and then exhaled. At the plaza outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which had been rebranded as Hostages Square, late-night scenes of unimpeded joy erupted. Families of hostages, who have until now been restrained in their public reactions to a prospective agreement, allowed themselves to break down in tears of relief.
Einav Zangauker and Anat Angrest, whose two sons—both named Matan—are in captivity in Gaza, held each other in a long embrace. “Matan and Matan are coming home!” Angrest cried out. Zangauker, who has become a symbol of the families’ long fight for the release of their loved ones, smiled warily. “Are there instructions for how to welcome your child after two years in captivity?” she asked, according to Haaretz.
Michel Illouz, whose son had been killed while being held by Hamas, approached Zangauker and lifted her in the air. To see the jubilation of both parents—one whose son is alive and will be home soon, the other whose son is expected to return in a body bag—was to witness the full spectrum of emotions felt by Israelis in the past two years: hope coexisting with grief, and the terrible sense that much of the bloodshed could have been prevented. A similar deal had been on the table months ago. What began with the worst attack on Israeli soil in the country’s history—when Hamas killed twelve hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages on October 7, 2023—has led to a gruesome war. The death toll in Gaza has surpassed sixty-seven thousand, with the enclave so ravaged that Israel has become something of an international pariah. For Israelis, the overwhelming sense is that their country has become ever more isolated on the world stage, even as its people remain in mourning. More than nine hundred Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza, and large numbers of the Army’s almost three hundred thousand reservists have been called up repeatedly for duty. Army suicide rates have been rising, too; sixteen soldiers have died that way this year, nearly half of them serving in reserve duty.
Before dawn on Thursday, scenes of relief and celebration began streaming in from Gaza. A group of Palestinian toddlers, standing barefoot outside their makeshift tents, jumped up and down, crying out “Hudna!”—“Truce!” In the streets of Khan Younis, dozens of men huddled around a single television, whistling and cheering. The Israeli military has now begun its retreat out of Gaza City, and vacated the Netzarim Corridor, which had cleaved Gaza in two, between north and south.
Over the past few days, delegations of Israeli and Hamas officials took part in talks in a ballroom in the Egyptian coastal town of Sharm el-Sheikh, to hash out the details of the agreement. Images also emerged showing the Israeli representative on the hostage issue, the retired general Nitzan Alon, smiling and shaking hands with Qatar’s Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Thani, just weeks after Israel attempted to assassinate top Hamas officials on Qatari soil.
Despite the handshakes, however, many obstacles remain unaddressed. In particular, there is still uncertainty on the issue of who will govern postwar Gaza and whether Hamas will agree to disarm. The timeline of an Israeli withdrawal and its extent also remains to be seen. Also left unanswered for now is the identity of some of the so-called “heavy” Palestinian prisoners whom Israel has promised to release in exchange for the hostages. The number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed by Israel has already been agreed on—some two hundred and fifty prisoners, and seventeen hundred Palestinians whom Israel has detained after Hamas’s October 7th attacks. But it remains unclear whether, for example, Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the Tanzim militia of Fatah, who is widely seen by Palestinians as a symbol of resistance and a potential leader who can unite both Fatah and Hamas, will be released. Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will not free him, but the pressing timetable is such that many red lines on both sides will likely be breached.
The ceasefire agreement is a crowning achievement for Trump, who appears to have timed it specifically to precede the announcement, on Friday, of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient—a long obsession of his. For Netanyahu, who up to this point has resisted an agreement to free all the hostages and end the war, the ceasefire deal marks an about-face. The political ramifications for him are still unknown. Although a majority of the Israeli public had been pushing for a hostage-and-ceasefire deal, Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners have threatened to topple his government if the war ended and the Israeli military withdrew entirely from Gaza. Shortly after the agreement was announced, Trump called into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and said that he had just spoken to Netanyahu. “He said, ‘I can’t believe it. Everybody is liking me now,’ ” Trump said, of Netanyahu, in an account that is not likely to be appreciated by the Israeli premier. “I said, ‘More importantly, they are loving Israel again,’ and they really are. I said, ‘Israel cannot fight the world, Bibi. They cannot fight the world.’ ”
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Ruth Margalit
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Celebrations erupt over Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza
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TEL AVIV — After two years of devastating war that killed tens of thousands, left millions displaced and pulverized much of Gaza into an apocalyptic moonscape, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a deal involving an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees.
Though Israel had still not formally ratify the pact, it was expected to do so Thursday evening, and celebrations had already broken out in the country. The news was greeted with relief and joy in Gaza, where Hamas said the agreement would end the war and lead to Israel’s full withdrawal from the enclave and to the entry of desperately needed aid.
The deal caps months of torturous ceasefire negotiations and delivers a denouement to a generation-defining fight in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Posting on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, President Trump announced the two sides had signed off on “the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” which would involve the hostage-detainee swap along with the Israeli military’s withdrawal from parts of Gaza — “the first steps towards a Strong, durable, and Everlasting Peace,” according to Trump.
“BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS,” he wrote.
News of the agreement triggered celebrations across Gaza, with residents exhausted by Israel’s no-holds-barred assault that had upended their lives, erased entire families and brought famine to the enclave expressing cautious hope.
“I never thought I’d see this day. We’ve been wanting it to come for months now, and then suddenly it happened so fast,” said Ali al-Azab, 34, from the central city of Deir Al-Balah in the enclave.
“We’ve been living in fear for so long, waiting for the next bomb to come, to lose another friend. But I also know the war isn’t over yet.”
Word of the ceasefire came early Thursday morning in Gaza, as Mohammad Rajab, 62, was still asleep. His son-in-law, he said, was the first to hear the good news.
“We’re like drowning people clutching at straws,” he said, adding that the ceasefire meant for him the chance “to return to a normal life.”
In Tel Aviv’s so-called Hostage Square, the area of this coastal city that has become the de-facto gathering point for Israelis’ large-scale protests to end the war and bring the hostages home, the mood Thursday was jubilant, with people dancing as they waved Israeli and American flags.
Many sported stickers on their shirts with the words “They’re returning,” in reference to the hostages, replacing stickers that had before depicted the number of days they had spent in captivity. At one point, a man blew a shofar, the traditional musical horn used in Jewish rituals, to the crowd’s applause.
Udi Goren, 44, a travel photographer whose cousin, 44-year-old Tal Haimi, was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and taken to Gaza, said his “first instinct was a sigh of relief.”
“For the first morning in two years, we can actually have a true smile because we finally see the end: The end of the war, of fallen soldiers, of hostages being tortured and starved, of the horrific sights from Gaza.”
He credited Trump for pressuring the belligerents to get the deal done.
“There was no real intervention until what we’ve just seen with President Trump finally saying enough is enough,” he said.
The deal, which is more of a framework centered on a 20-point plan Trump released last week, would see all 48 hostages — 20 of them alive, the rest deceased — released. Hamas officials have said in recent interviews that retrieving bodies of dead hostages will take time, as many are in collapsed or bombed-out tunnels or under the rubble. Those alive could be released as early as Sunday or Monday.
Israel will release 1,700 Gaza residents detained during the war, along with 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israel. For every Israeli body returned, Israel will release the bodies of 15 Gaza residents.
Hamas said on Thursday it had handed over the list of prisoners to be released to mediators, and would announce the names once they were agreed upon.
Earlier reports claimed the ceasefire had already begun, but Israeli airstrikes and artillery still continued to pound the enclave Thursday, with health authorities in the enclave saying at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured.
Footage taken by Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera depicted tanks shelling Gaza’s main coastal road to prevent Palestinians from gathering in the area. Civil defense crews warned people attempting to return to the north of the enclave from doing so they received confirmation Israeli forces had left.
In a statement to Israeli daily Times of Israel, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire would begin Thursday evening after the government officially ratifies the agreement. The government is set to vote on the agreement at 6 p.m. local time, according to Israeli media.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had “begun operational preparations ahead of the implementation of the agreement” and would adjust deployment lines “soon.” Meanwhile, it was still “deployed in the area,” it said, and the military’s Arabic-language spokesman said in a statement that Gaza City was still surrounded by the army and that returning to it was dangerous.
The ceasefire will be accompanied by a surge of aid into the enclave, a crucial component of the agreement meant to alleviate a crushing, months-long Israeli blockade that had triggered famine in parts of the enclave, according to aid groups and experts. Aid groups and the Palestinian Health Ministry said more than 400 people had died of starvation in recent months.
Writing on X, Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said the group was “on the ground and ready to scale up operations.”
“But we need to move NOW — there is no time to waste,” she wrote.
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants blitzed into southern Israel, leaving 1,200 people — two thirds of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities — and kidnapping some 250 others.
In retaliation, Israel launched a furious response that has so far killed 67,183 people, encompassing more than 3% of the enclave’s population and including 20,179 children, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. Though it does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, its figures are seen as reliable.
Yet much remains unclear, including the fate of Hamas’s arsenal and what sort of presence, if at all, Israel will maintain in the enclave.
Speaking to the Qatari channel Al-Araby TV, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said Israel would pull out militarily from all populated areas in Gaza — including Khan Yunis, Rafah, and Gaza City by Friday. Another spokesman, Hazem Qassem, said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday the group will not be part of Gaza’s governance in the future. but that the group’s arms were to “guarantee the independence of Palestinian decision-making.”
Other Hamas officials have said handing over weapons would only occur as part of a move towards an independent Palestinian state.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric, the agreement remains far from the comprehensive peace agreement he has promised. And its success kicks up thornier questions for Netanyahu, a deeply unpopular leader with many Israelis and whose critics accuse of prolonging the war to guarantee his political survival at the expense of hostages’ lives.
Implementing the agreement is likely to alienate his right-wing allies in the government, including extremist figures such as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has called for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians. He said in a statement on X that he will vote against the deal.
He added the government had “an enormous obligation to ensure that we do not return to the Oslo track,” referring to the Oslo peace process, and to becoming “addicted again to artificial calm, diplomatic embraces, and smiling ceremonies, while mortgaging the future and paying horrific prices.”
At Hostage Square, Israelis demonstrated their rage at Netanyahu and others associated with his leadership during the war. When Benny Gantz, an Israeli opposition leader who served in Netanyahu’s cabinet until last year walked through the crowd, hecklers shouted at him “to go home,” accusing him of claiming a success he had not earned.
“When the war began, Gantz joined Bibi and saved him instead of bringing down his government,” said Einat Mastbaum, a 50-year-old Hebrew teacher, employing Netanyahu’s nickname.
Yet even politicians’ presence couldn’t detract from the happiness of the crowd, according to Mastbaum, who has been coming to Hostage Square every week for the last two years.
“I’m so excited,” she said, her voice cracking as tears appeared in her eyes.
“Today I’m crying from happiness and hope, not sadness.”
Times Staff Writer Bulos reported from Tel Aviv. Special correspondent Bilal Shbeir contributed from Al-Balah, Gaza Strip.
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Nabih Bulos
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Live updates: Israel and Hamas set to sign
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“This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America,” President Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform Wednesday night, announcing the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Two regional sources told CBS News there was an agreement on all sides in principle on a hostage release, but that procedural issues remained. Once those details are handled, it will be 48 hours before any release starts, the sources said.
Mr. Trump, in an interview Wednesday night with Fox News host Sean Hannity, said hostages would “probably” be released on Monday, U.S. time, and that the exchange would include the release of the bodies of deceased hostages still held by Hamas.
Mr. Trump told Hannity that other parts of the 20-point Israel-Hamas peace plan he laid out last week — including a committee to oversee governance in Gaza — could be forthcoming, without giving a timeline.
“I think you’re going to see people getting along, and you’ll see Gaza being rebuilt,” the president said. “People are going to be taken care of. It’s going to be a different world.”
Majed al-Ansari, an adviser to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, also confirmed the deal on Wednesday, writing on X that an agreement was reached on “the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to ending the war, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of aid.”
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President Trump says Israel, Hamas agree to ‘first phase’ of plan to end fighting, release hostages
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Israel and Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of his peace plan to pause fighting and release at least some hostages and prisoners, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday in announcing the outlines of the biggest breakthrough in months in the two-year-old war.“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on social media. “All Parties will be treated fairly!”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.” Hamas said separately that the deal would ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops as well as allow for the entry of aid and exchange of hostages and prisoners.Hamas plans to release all 20 living hostages this weekend, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, while the Israeli military will begin a withdrawal from the majority of Gaza.It was not immediately clear whether the parties had made any progress on thornier questions about the future of the conflict, including whether Hamas will demilitarize, as Trump has demanded, and eventual governance of the war-torn territory. But the agreement nonetheless marked the most momentous development since a deal in January and February that involved the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.The deal was solidified in Egypt after days of negotiations centered on a Trump-backed peace plan that he hopes will ultimately result in a permanent end to the war and bring about a sustainable peace in the region.The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, devastated Gaza and upended global politics.Trump expressed optimism earlier in the day by saying that he was considering a trip to the Middle East within a matter of days.Yet another hint of a deal came later in that event when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio passed Trump a note on White House stationery that read, “You need to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.” Truth Social is the president’s preferred social media platform.The note prompted Trump to proclaim, “We’re very close to a deal in the Middle East.”
WASHINGTON —Israel and Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of his peace plan to pause fighting and release at least some hostages and prisoners, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday in announcing the outlines of the biggest breakthrough in months in the two-year-old war.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on social media. “All Parties will be treated fairly!”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.” Hamas said separately that the deal would ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops as well as allow for the entry of aid and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Hamas plans to release all 20 living hostages this weekend, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, while the Israeli military will begin a withdrawal from the majority of Gaza.
It was not immediately clear whether the parties had made any progress on thornier questions about the future of the conflict, including whether Hamas will demilitarize, as Trump has demanded, and eventual governance of the war-torn territory. But the agreement nonetheless marked the most momentous development since a deal in January and February that involved the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The deal was solidified in Egypt after days of negotiations centered on a Trump-backed peace plan that he hopes will ultimately result in a permanent end to the war and bring about a sustainable peace in the region.
The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, devastated Gaza and upended global politics.
Trump expressed optimism earlier in the day by saying that he was considering a trip to the Middle East within a matter of days.
Yet another hint of a deal came later in that event when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio passed Trump a note on White House stationery that read, “You need to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.” Truth Social is the president’s preferred social media platform.
The note prompted Trump to proclaim, “We’re very close to a deal in the Middle East.”
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Donald Trump Says Israel And Hamas Have Agreed To First Phase Of Peace Plan
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President Donald Trump said that Israel and Hamas have signed off on the first phase of a peace plan for Gaza.
Trump posted on Truth Social, “This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”
Major issues still need to be resolved, but the announcement, which has been anticipated throughout the day on Wednesday, appeared to be a significant breakthrough after two years of war in Gaza.
“With God’s help we will bring them all home,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.
A Qatari official posted on social media, “The mediators announce that tonight an agreement was reached on all the provisions and implementation mechanisms of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to ending the war, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of aid. The details will be announced later.”
Photographers caught wind of a pending announcement at an earlier White House event, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio handed the president a note. It read, “Very close. We need you to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is considering traveling to the Middle East soon after receiving his annual physical at Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday.
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Ted Johnson
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Opinion | Free Gaza’s Palestinians from Hamas
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Trump’s peace plan is a path to freedom and stability for the strip’s oppressed residents.
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Moumen Al-Natour
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Gaza war has killed an estimated 20,000 kids. CBS News meets many more orphaned, and
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Jerusalem — Indirect peace talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at ending the war in Gaza and freeing the remaining Israeli hostages resumed Wednesday in Egypt. President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to arrive in Egypt on Wednesday to join the conversations, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The war was sparked by the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken as hostages. Israeli officials believe 48 of those people remain captive, though only 20 are believed to still be alive.
Since that day, the Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health says Israel’s retaliatory war has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Israel disputes that figure but provides no estimate of its own, and the United Nations considers the health ministry’s count the most reliable information available, as Israel has barred foreign journalists from operating independently in Gaza.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, said this week that what he calls Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza has killed or maimed at least 61,000 children since the war started.
UNICEF and the global charity Save the Children, which cited data compiled by the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office, say that on average, a child dies every hour in Gaza — or “a classroom of children” per day, as UNICEF put it.
Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu/Getty
Since the war started, Save the Children says at least 20,000 kids have been killed in total – amounting to nearly a third of all Palestinians believed to have died in the war.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder, told CBS News that when he visited one of Gaza’s beleaguered hospitals this week, “the first thing I saw was four children who had all been shot by quadcopters [military drones], then I went into a hallway and it was wall-to-wall children across all the corridors.”
“There was a boy bleeding out on the floor who had apparently been there for five hours, then he was put on a stretcher only for another child to be put in his place,” Elder told CBS News. “Then I watched a little girl die. That’s half an hour here in Gaza.”
The staggering death toll does not reflect the thousands more children who have been maimed and injured, or those who have lost one or both parents during the war.
At a makeshift camp for Palestinian orphans in the southern city of Khan Younis, CBS News’ team in Gaza saw some of the young faces behind the grim statistics.
CBS News
“I wish the war were just a dream I’d wake up from and see my parents next to me,” said 14-year-old Deena Al-Za’arab, who lost both of her parents.
“I have to keep it together for the sake of my siblings,” she added, “because now I must raise them.”
Many of the children at the camp now spend their days doing the work of adults.
Arat Awqal, who is just 10, promised her father she’d be a doctor before he died, but she now focuses on taking care of her younger sister.
“I just want to go back to how it used to be,” she told CBS News. “Whenever we heard the sound of missiles my father would hold us, but now he’s gone, and we are always scared.”
CBS News
UNICEF says one in five children in Gaza is acutely malnourished, and Elder stressed that the trauma being inflicted on the youngest is not just physical.
“The kids not only lost loved ones — it’s not just about just having your mother killed, it’s about watching your mother die, then add that level of trauma to being displaced — and we talk of displacement, it sounds like a neutral or abstract term. It’s not. It’s violent. It’s repetitious, and it also increases trauma.”
The U.N. estimates that about 90% of Gaza’s population, some 1.9 million people, have been forcibly displaced during the war, many of them multiple times as the focus of Israel’s military operations has shifted. Most recently, the Israel Defense Forces ordered everyone to leave Gaza City, the enclave’s biggest population center, and to move further south, to areas such as Khan Younis.
It’s led to another mass exodus, which aid workers say has increased the suffering in the region and made it harder to help those showing up, often with nothing.
“There have been several hundred thousands of people who have moved from the north recently, in the last few weeks,” Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told CBS News’ Haley Ott on Wednesday.
“The situation was already very crowded,” she said, speaking on the phone from central Gaza. “They are now even more so. You can see a lot of people living on the side of the road, pitching tents on the sides of the roads … There are many people who fled on foot and, of course, were not able to bring anything with them, and this creates extremely difficult conditions in terms of hygiene, sanitation and these kinds of things.”
CBS News
At the camp for the orphans — all of them among the displaced — 12-year-old Gazal Basam told CBS News she felt “such pain in my heart after losing my dad.”
“I want to live like I did before the war,” she said. “But I know life will never be the same again.”.
“I feel such pain in my heart after losing my dad,” said 12-year-old Gazal Basam at the camp for orphans. “I want to live like I did before the war, but I know life will never be the same again.”
and
contributed to this report.
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Israel foils second Gaza flotilla in a week, activists say vessels were under attack
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The Gaza Freedom Flotilla claimed that the Israeli military was jamming signals and had boarded at least two boats. The IDF has not yet commented on the incident.
Israel said Wednesday it thwarted another attempt to breach its maritime blockade of Gaza, intercepting a flotilla of nine vessels organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The boats, carrying about 100 activists, had sailed from Italy two weeks ago.
“Another futile attempt to breach the legal naval blockade and enter a combat zone ended in nothing,” the Foreign Ministry tweeted. “The vessels and the passengers are transferred to an Israeli port. All the passengers are safe and in good health. The passengers are expected to be deported promptly.”
The passengers detained are “expected to be deported promptly,” the ministry added.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla said its vessels were under attack by the Israeli military, with several boats intercepted while sailing toward the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military was jamming signals with at least two boats being boarded, the flotilla said on Instagram.
A screengrab from live footage shows an Israeli soldier smashing the CCTV camera of ”Gaza Sunbird”, a Gaza-bound vessel which is part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, with a gun as the boat is intercepted by Israeli security forces, in this screengrab obtained from a video released on October 8, 2025. (credit: Freedom Flotilla Coalition/Handout via REUTERS)
The IDF has not yet commented on the incident.
The interception follows a series of similar maritime confrontations in recent weeks. On Thursday, Israel stopped the 42-ship Global Sumud Flotilla, which carried 479 activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. Nearly all of those detained have since been deported.
Documents found in Gaza and released by Israel’s Foreign Ministry traced direct Hamas involvement in organizing and financing the Sumud flotilla to break the Israeli blockade of the Strip. Israel said the boats carried no aid and accused participants of seeking confrontation rather than delivering humanitarian relief.
Only seven activists remain in custody, including a Spanish national accused of biting an Israel Prison Service officer.
Israel and Egypt have maintained restrictions on Gaza to prevent weapons smuggling since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. Since then, Palestinian activists have periodically launched flotillas to challenge the blockade. In 2011, an independent UN inquiry into the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident criticized Israeli forces for using excessive force but upheld the blockade’s legality.
Approximately 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 48 remaining hostages, about 20 are believed to be alive.
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2 years after Hamas-led attack, an Israeli town struggles to rebuild
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BEERI, Israel — Little has changed in the house of Miri Gad Messika’s parents from two years ago, when Hamas-led militants blitzed into this tiny community less than three miles from Gaza’s eastern edge, killing more than 100 people and kidnapping 32 others.
The scorch marks from the fighting that day still mar the walls, and the underbrush of bullet-shattered tiles crackles with Messika’s every step. To the side lay a stuffed panda doll, dusty and discarded on what remained of a kitchen counter.
“We always used to say this place is 99% heaven and 1% hell,” Messika said, her eyes sweeping across the room before looking out into the ravaged courtyard.
Miri Gad Messika, a Beeri resident who was in the kibbutz on the day of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, is shown at her parents’ destroyed home on the second anniversary of the attack.
(Yahel Gazit / For The Times)
The heaven part was the place she knew all her life as a third-generation resident of Beeri, with its printing press and basketball team. Hell? That was the periodic rocket attacks during the decades of flare-ups between the militant group Hamas and Israel that would send residents racing into their safe rooms.
“But we knew how to manage that,” she said. “We just went into the safe room and closed the door. That’s it.”
But 10 minutes into the onslaught that fateful Saturday morning on Oct. 7, 2023, Messika understood it was “a historic event.”
Visitors point to photos of their loved ones who were killed at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
(Yahel Gazit / For The Times)
“We weren’t prepared for such a thing,” she said.
On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the attack, Messika and others across Israel recalled the day that sparked the country’s longest war, shattered Israelis’ long-held sense of security and entrenched anew the hatreds and divisions long a part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The scars endure like the lingering smell of soot in her parents’ home.
Four Beeri residents remain in Hamas’ hands, but none are alive, Messika said, adding to a tally of 102 people who were killed — almost 10% of the kibbutz’s population. And while a few hundred residents have returned to live here, most remain in alternative housing, awaiting a reconstruction project to repair the 134 houses destroyed in the attack, including Messika’s.
Messika is building a new house and is adamant that she, her husband and their three children will continue to live here among the community of those who survived. But there are days — like Tuesday — when she wakes up with a migraine that makes her “want to never wake up.”
“How do you digest the loss of 102 people?” she said.
The Hamas operation began around 6:29 a.m. and involved a rocket and drone barrage, paraglider commandos and teams of fighters fanning out on pickups and motorcycles from Gaza across southern Israel. By the time it ended, about 1,200 people were killed, two-thirds of them civilians, Israeli authorities say, and roughly 250 people were kidnapped.
There is hope here and across the region that there may soon be a denouement to the war. Last week, President Trump presented a 20-point peace plan that has since been accepted — for the most part — by Hamas and Israel. Final negotiations are underway this week in Egypt, with the expectation that all hostages — the 20 who are alive, and the 28 thought to have died — will be handed over in the coming days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement Tuesday, pledged U.S. support for Israel and said the peace proposal “offers a historic opportunity to close this dark chapter and to build a foundation for a lasting peace and security for all.”
But even if that were to happen, said Shosh Sasson, 72, there was a sense of something having been irretrievably shattered.
“I never thought an attack like this would happen here. We always felt safe. But now the ground under our feet feels wobbly. Yes, even now, because the problem is not finished,” said Sasson, who came with her husband to pay their respects at a shelter-turned-shrine on the highway outside Beeri.
Her husband, Yaakov, agreed. “For the future it will always be like this. Our neighbors don’t want to live with us in a friendly way,” he said.
Nearby in Reim, the site of the Nova music festival, where about 300 concertgoers were killed, visitors walked around a memorial site, featuring posters bearing images of the victims and a description of their last moments.
I never thought an attack like this would happen here. We always felt safe. But now the ground under our feet feels wobbly
— Shosh Sasson, Israeli citizen
A few yards away, a tour group from Eagles’ Wings, an organization that brings Christians to visit Israel and support it, were listening reverently to 26-year-old Chen Malca as she described her experience surviving the Nova attack. When she finished, a priest led a prayer, putting his hand on Malca’s head as the others raised their hands to the sky.
“We pray the destruction of Hamas and the destruction of evil, just a couple of yards away from us over in Gaza, Father,” he said.
As he spoke, an explosion boomed in the distance, then another. One of the Eagles’ Wings organizers reassured the group that it was “the Israeli action activity in Gaza. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
Standing apart from the mass of people was 55-year-old Kati Zohar, who kept vigil before a memorial for her daughter, Bar, 23, who was killed as she was trying to warn police that Hamas fighters were nearby, Zohar said.
She and her husband moved four months ago to the city of Sderot — a 20-minute drive away — so as to be near their daughter’s memorial.
“Every time I feel that I’m missing her, I come here and sit with her, drink a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, talk to her … because this is the last place she was alive and happy,” she said.
Though once a happy person, “I’m not happy any more, and I don’t think I will be again,” she said. “A part of me is missing.”
Her sadness, Zohar said, was matched by her disappointment that the Israeli army did not do more to stop the attacks and save her daughter, and by her anger that the war was still going on with the hostages still not returned even as the world is turning against Israel.
Israel’s campaign since the attack has so far killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, left nearly 170,000 wounded and all but obliterated the enclave, even as almost all of Gaza’s residents are now displaced. The United Nations, rights groups, experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide.
Israel denies the charge, even as it faces unprecedented levels of opprobrium.
“Everyone is saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, so what Gaza did in Israel on the 7th of October, it’s not genocide?” Zohar said.
She added that she did not believe peace with Gaza’s Palestinians was possible. “If they’re not sending missiles, it’s drones, or balloons, or another 7th of October,” she said.
“We’re not trying to disturb them, we’re not sending missiles or drones,” she added. “We say, ‘Let us live in peace, you live in peace.’ But they don’t want that.”
ACLED, a conflict monitor, released a report Tuesday detailing attacks in Gaza by the Israeli military since Oct. 7, 2023. The report tallied more than 11,110 air and drone strikes; more than 6,250 shelling, artillery or missile attacks and about 1,500 armed clashes.
Messika, the Beeri resident, felt similarly disillusioned about the prospect of peace. Before the war, kibbutzim residents tried to help Gazans, hiring them for jobs or and taking them for medical treatments. And she remembered her father telling her about going to Gaza to eat falafel — “It used to have the best falafel, he always said” — and buying produce in its vegetable markets. But notions of helping Gazans were born of naivete.
“We know that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza…. They hate us,” she said, adding that Trump’s plan, which involves disarming Gaza, was the right solution. Messika was still debating with other residents whether all the damaged houses should be torn down, or if some should be preserved as a memorial.
“Some say we can’t come back to live near a place like this. It would be like living near Auschwitz,” she said. But for her, it was a matter of turning Oct. 7 into a learning opportunity. Without that, she insisted, the suffering would all be for nothing. Though the kibbutz’s council said to go ahead with the demolitions, she appealed and was awaiting a new verdict.
“The next generation, they need to learn and see with their own eyes, to walk through it,” she said. “It’s not enough to make a website, or a memorial. This is evidence for the history, for what happened to our friends. And I don’t want it to be destroyed.”
About 10 miles away, in Sderot, people flocked to a mountain on the city’s edge, which over the years has become a popular vantage point for a glimpse of Gaza, complete with a telescope — cost: five shekels — for a closer look at the landscape. Suddenly, in the distance, a large cloud of smoke bloomed somewhere beyond the destroyed edge of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.
Some lifted their smartphones to record video. Others gave an appreciative nod and lauded the Israeli military’s “work ethic” during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Behind them, children played in the afternoon sun.
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Nabih Bulos
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Opinion | The Oct. 7 Warning for the U.S. on China
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Hamas’s shock troops poured across Israel’s border two years ago, kidnapping, raping and killing civilian men, women and children. Israel’s bitter experience offers lessons America should learn before our own moment of reckoning.
The most important is that the hypothetical war can actually happen. Even if we’re intellectually prepared, there’s a risk that years of relative peace has lulled us into a false sense of security. The Israeli defense establishment never truly believed Hamas would launch a full-scale invasion. They viewed Gaza as a chronic but manageable problem—one for diplomats and intelligence officers, distant from the daily concerns of citizens. Israeli politicians and generals also spoke of open conflict with the Iran-led Islamist axis much like their American counterparts speak of China and a Taiwan crisis—the pacing threat and the most likely test, yes, but ultimately a question for tomorrow. Then tomorrow came.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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Mike Gallagher
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U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner heading to Egypt as Gaza ceasefire talks continue
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U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are planning to head to Egypt on Tuesday and arrive there Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter, as indirect peace talks between Israel and Hamas continue.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Witkoff and Kushner were on hand to take part in the talks, which are focused on a plan proposed by Mr. Trump last week that aims to end the war in Gaza.
The indirect talks, with Egypt and Qatar acting as intermediaries between Israel and Hamas, resumed on Tuesday for a second day in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. They were being held as neighboring Israel marked two years since the Hamas attack that triggered the war.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told journalists that members of the U.S. delegation would join the talks on Wednesday.
Senior officials from the U.S., Qatar and Turkey continue to arrive in Sharm el-Sheikh to join the negotiations, a senior Egyptian official involved in the talks told The Associated Press.
The official said Hamas has demanded guarantees that Israel won’t return to war after the release of the remaining 48 hostages who were taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Israel believes 20 of them are still alive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive, closed-door negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war will only end when all the remaining hostages are returned and Hamas — which the U.S. and Israel consider to be a terrorist organization — has been disarmed. He has accepted Mr. Trump’s plan, which calls for Gaza to be placed under international governance and for Hamas to be disarmed — demands that its leaders have yet to accept.
The plan has received widespread international backing. Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday that he thought there was a “really good chance” of a lasting deal.
“This is beyond Gaza,” he said. “Gaza is a big deal, but this is really peace in the Middle East.”
The plan envisions Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza after Hamas disarms, and an international security force being put in place. The territory would be placed under international governance, with Mr. Trump and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair overseeing it.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Hamas reiterated its longstanding demands for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza but said nothing about disarmament.
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Most have since been released in ceasefires or other deals.
The war that has ensued has killed at least 67,160 Palestinians and left nearly 170,000 wounded, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, says more than half of the deaths were women and children.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the hostilities have created “a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale that defied comprehension.” Mr. Trump’s proposal “presents an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end,” he said in a statement.
Part of the plan is to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza, where more than 2 million Palestinians are facing hunger and, in some areas, famine.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday’s talks went on for around four hours. He said on Tuesday that Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who is also the country’s minister of foreign affairs, will join the negotiations on Wednesday.
Israel’s delegation included Gal Hirsch, coordinator for the hostages and the missing from Netanyahu’s office. Hamas representatives included top negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.
contributed to this report.
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Israel marks 2 years of pain since Hamas’ attack, as the Gaza war echoes across solemn memorial events
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Re’im, southern Israel — The people of Israel were marking a grim milestone on Tuesday, mourning their dead two years after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led terrorist attack. Some 1,200 people were murdered that day, most of them civilians, and 251 others taken hostage. Israeli officials believe 48 people are still being held captive in Gaza, only 20 of them believed to be alive.
Their families are desperate for a deal to end the war and bring their loved ones home.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel were entering a second day in Egypt, spurred by President Trump’s calls for both sides to agree to a ceasefire based on his recently announced 20-point peace proposal.
Pressure has been mounting on Israel and Hamas not only from the White House but from around the world, with many of Israel’s Arab neighbors pushing Hamas to accept a peace agreement and backing Mr. Trump’s proposal.
“I have said it time and again, and I am repeating it today with even greater urgency: Release the hostages, unconditionally and immediately,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Put an end to the hostilities in Gaza, Israel and the region now. Stop making civilians pay with their lives and their futures.”
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty
The main Oct. 7 memorial event, in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, was organized by the bereaved families — not the government, reflecting deep divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership since the attack.
Many Israelis blame him for failing to bring all the hostages home.
The Hamas attack sparked Israel’s ongoing, devastating war in the Gaza Strip. More than 66,000 people have been killed, according to the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. Huge swaths of the coastal enclave, home to more than 2 million people, have been destroyed.
Another memorial was set up at the site of the Nova music festival, close to the Gaza border in the southern Israeli desert. It was overrun by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 two years ago, and almost 380 people were killed.
Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg/Getty
Orit Baron, whose daughter Yuval was among the festival goers killed that day, along with her fiance Moshe Shuva, told the French news agency AFP that she came to the site “to be with her, because this is the last time that she was alive.”
Baron was among dozens of friends and relatives of those killed, and others just wishing to pay their respects. Many lit candles and stood for one minute in silence, remembering those lost to terrorism.
As they did, the sounds of the war in Gaza, just a few miles away, continued reverberating through the air.
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contributed to this report.
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Family waits, worries after SoCal activist with Gaza flotilla is sent to Israeli prison
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Last week, David Adler posted what he said would be his final communication from aboard a boat sailing toward Gaza carrying medical supplies, food and other aid.
The Southern Californian wrote that the previous night several Israeli naval ships had “menaced” the convoy of some 40 boats.
“They attacked our vessels, intimidated our crew, and disabled our communications,” he said in the Oct. 1 post.
Soon after, his regular messages to his parents, who live in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Encino, and to his older sister and brother stopped.
The 33-year-old co-founder of left-wing political organization Progressive International was among more than 450 peace activists, medical workers and other volunteers on the convoy known as the Gaza Sumud Flotilla who were detained late last week after Israeli naval forces intercepted the boats in international waters.
His family said they had not been able to reach him since Oct. 1, but learned about a day later that he had been taken to Ashdod, a major cargo port in Israel, and then transferred to Ketziot prison in the Negev Desert.
“I haven’t been able to talk to him, I don’t know what kind of shape he’s in, and that makes me really scared,” said Ruth Kremen, Adler’s mother.
A group of California Democrats urged the State Department in a letter Monday to facilitate the release of several Californians and other detained U.S. citizens.
“The U.S. has an obligation to protect its citizens abroad and must act immediately,” they said in the letter, which was signed by 24 congressional representatives and other officials and sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “We call on you to work for [their] immediate and safe release, including arranging the logistics of a plane to ensure their speedy recovery.”
In recent days, hundreds of flotilla activists who were detained, including prominent Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, were deported from Israel and flown to Athens. But only a few American participants have been released, with 21 remaining in Israeli custody as of Monday, according to the letter.
Besides Adler, those detained included three other Californians: internet celebrity Tommy Marcus, who is based in the Los Angeles area; Geraldine Ramirez, from Cathedral City in the Coachella Valley; and Logan Hollarsmith, of San Francisco.
California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who was among the letter’s signatories, told The Times that he had heard that Americans would be released in the next day or so. But without clear arrangements from the U.S. State Department, they might be transported by land to neighboring Jordan, even as other countries have arranged for flights to bring their citizens home, he said.
“What I have heard from families is frustration,” Khanna said. “This is a priority for the California delegation — to make sure our constituents are returned safely. And we are putting pressure on Israel to do that.”
The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment from The Times but said in statements to other news outlets that it takes its “commitment to assist U.S. citizens seriously and [is] monitoring the situation.”
“The flotilla is a deliberate and unnecessary provocation. We are currently focused on realizing President Trump’s plan to end the war, which has been universally welcomed as a historic opportunity for a lasting peace,” the State Department has said.
The core vessels in the Gaza Sumud Flotilla set sail from Barcelona, Spain, more than a month ago with volunteers from dozens of countries to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s two-year-long siege on the strip of land has killed more than 60,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israel’s bombing campaign and its months-long blockade have triggered famine in Gaza , authorities say, and garnered accusations from a U.N. commission of inquiry and international legal bodies that the U.S. ally is carrying out genocide. Israel has rejected the claim as “distorted and false,” and contends the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked Israel’s war in Gaza was itself a genocidal act. About 1,200 people were killed in that attack and 251 were taken hostage.
Although Adler’s family was supportive of his cause, his mother and sister said they had tried to dissuade him from joining the flotilla, fearing for his safety — knowing that in an Israeli raid of a flotilla in 2010, 10 activists were killed, including a Turkish American, and dozens of others were injured.
“Both of us trusted him to do what he thought was right, and are very proud of him for what he did, but the anxiety level has been very high, absolutely,” Adler’s father, Paul, said.
Adler, who is Jewish, wrote in a piece for the Nation that his grandfather joined the Parisian resistance against the Nazis, and that he draws from his heritage in his rationale for joining the flotilla.
“I joined this flotilla just like any other delegate — to defend humanity, before it is too late. But on Yom Kippur, I am reminded that I am also here because my Jewish heritage demands it,” Adler wrote.
Adler’s sister Laura, who lives in Connecticut, said there were 24 hours when the family didn’t know his fate.
“It sounds silly to say you’re relieved to find out that your brother is in a prison, but I was relieved to learn at least that he was physically safe,” she said. “I just don’t understand why our country, which is Israel’s biggest supporter, can’t be more assertive in protecting its citizens abroad.”
Family members said that, because Adler acquired nationality in France and Australia through his father, they received some information about his condition from reports compiled by representatives in those countries. By contrast, details from the U.S. government have been lacking, the family said.
Another Southern Californian is among those on a second convoy of about 10 boats that set sail last week.
L.A.-based independent journalist and human rights researcher Emily Wilder is on board to document the flotilla effort for news outlet Jewish Currents. She said that “as a passenger on a ship in the same trajectory toward Gaza… toward a possible capture by Israeli forces,” she was “really concerned about the people that have been taken and are currently in Israeli custody.”
“But of course, a mission like this is inherently risky,” Wilder said.
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Suhauna Hussain
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The war in Gaza cost the US over $30B—Most of it sent to Israel: Report
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The United States has spent more than $30 billion on the war in Gaza and associated conflicts in the Middle East, with more than half of this figure devoted to military support for Israel, a new report shared with Newsweek has found.
The study, released early Tuesday to mark the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the still-ongoing conflict, was overseen by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. While the scale of death and destruction emanating from the war has captivated audiences across the globe, the findings reveal a lesser-known yet significant cost to U.S. taxpayers.
Between October 2023 and September 2025, the U.S. devoted $21.7 billion in military aid to its top Middle East ally, Israel, while an additional range of $9.65−$12.07 billion has been spent by the U.S. on operations conducted in Yemen, Iran and elsewhere in the region in relation to the spillover of the conflict.
Altogether, the final figure is estimated to be between $31.35 billion and $33.77 billion, excluding additional sales still slated for Israel, which has already witnessed a historic increase in U.S. military assistance at the onset of the conflict.
“In a normal year, Israel would get $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid, pursuant to a 10-year agreement reached during the Obama administration,” William Hartung, co-author of the Costs of War report and senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Newsweek.
“In the first year of the Gaza war, that figure skyrocketed to $17.9 billion, the highest level ever,” he added. “The second year of the Gaza war reverted back to the usual $3.8 billion. This was partially because the flood of aid for the prior year will be spread over a number of years, meaning that some of it could be used to finance the second year of the Gaza war.”
A Divisive Debate
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and allied Palestinian factions launched a surprise attack against Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 more hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel responded by launching its largest-scale war in Gaza to date, resulting in the deaths of more than 64,000 people in the Palestinian territory.
The conflict is the longest and deadliest of its kind for both sides and quickly spread across the region as factions of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance joined the fray in support of Hamas from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Israel and Iran have also clashed directly on three occasions, the latest and most intensive of which erupted in June, with the United States also conducting strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as part of what President Donald Trump has called the “12-Day War.”
Although both Trump’s administration and President Joe Biden’s before him have largely backed Israel throughout the conflict, recent polling shows that views of the U.S. public have shifted significantly since the war began.
A New York Times/Siena survey published last week shows that, while 47 percent of respondents said they sympathized more with Israel than Palestinians in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led assault two years ago, that figure has now dropped to 34 percent, with 36 percent more sympathetic to Palestinians. The poll also found that a slight majority of 51 percent oppose providing additional economic and military support to Israel.
The trend has been accompanied by a growing international outcry and persistent protests in the U.S. over allegations of Israeli war crimes, including the targeting of civilians and the withholding of aid to Gaza. Israeli officials deny any systematic violations of international law and assert that Hamas routinely used noncombatants as human shields and smuggled humanitarian assistance, accusations denied by the militant group.
Hartung was among those who have criticized Israeli actions throughout the war, as well as the sharp increase in U.S. military spending associated with the regional conflict.
“Recent U.S. aid does not serve U.S. interests,” Hartung said. “The bulk of it has gone into enabling Israeli attacks on Gaza, which are disproportionate to aggression by Hamas and will create enmity towards the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond for years to come, complicating our ability to get support on other issues.”
“And other than missile defense systems, additional U.S. support has gone into attacks in the region like the bombing of Iran, which are more likely to spur retaliation and escalation than stabilize the region,” he added. “This is different from decades ago when U.S. aid was focused on deterring Arab states from attacking Israel, as they had done int 1967 and 1973.”
Newsweek reached out to the Israeli Consulate General in New York and the U.S. State Department for comment.
Direct U.S. Involvement
U.S. intervention in the Middle East has tested Trump’s electoral promise to avoid costly U.S. military endeavors abroad and oversee a more peaceful international order.
In addition to defending Israel against Iranian attacks and striking three Iranian nuclear sites in an unprecedented operation in June, the U.S. has also targeted Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq throughout the conflict. Attacks against Iraqi militias largely ceased last summer following an unofficial truce under the Biden administration, while Trump announced a ceasefire with Ansar Allah in May that temporarily halted the group’s attacks on international shipping.
Operations against Iran and its Ansar Allah ally were particularly expensive. The Costs of War report found that both foes and their weapons were targeted with hundreds of multimillion-dollar munitions fired from even pricier platforms such as the $70 million F/A-18 Hornet, three of which were lost amid the battle with Ansar Allah.
Media reports have also indicated that the extensive use of interceptors, both those fired directly by the U.S. and others transferred to Israel, has substantially depleted the Pentagon’s supplies. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to pledge arms shipments to partners on other fronts, including Ukraine in the midst of Russia’s ongoing war, and Taiwan, which is claimed by top U.S. geopolitical rival China, threatening additional stockpile strains.
Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, who co-authored the Costs of War report with Hartung, argued in her conclusion that her work was motivated by an effort to inform the U.S. public about the scale of funds devoted by the U.S. to conflict in the Middle East.
“The American public has a right to know how U.S. funding is used in conflict, and to recognize that U.S. military activities in the Middle East carry significant financial costs for taxpayers,” Bilmes wrote. “These costs are often hidden and should be weighed alongside how well they advance the goal of peace in the region.”
She also noted that “the full budgetary impact is likely to increase as replacement and sustainment requirements mature,” meaning that “the fiscal burden is substantial and should be material to discussions on U.S. policy.”
Prospects for Peace
The second anniversary of the devastating conflict comes amid renewed hopes for peace following a 20-point proposal unveiled last week by the White House that would result in a permanent end to the conflict, the release of hostages and prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the replacement of the territory’s Hamas-led government with an independent committee comprised of Palestinian experts and led by Trump, among other conditions.
The plan was met on Friday with a positive response from Hamas that Trump characterized as indicating the group was “ready for lasting peace.” He called on Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza” and, on Sunday, reported “very successful” talks among the parties and mediators.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that “technical talks” were currently underway in Egypt as the administration “is working very to move the ball forward.”
Yet U.S. regional commitments may only grow even in a postwar scenario. Trump’s recent decision to guarantee Qatar’s security after the nation that hosts the largest U.S. base in the Middle East was struck by both Iran and Israel in the past four months has raised questions about the extent to which Washington was adding to its existing posture in the Arabian Peninsula.
The U.S. also continues to conduct strikes against Islamic State militant group (ISIS) targets in Iraq and Syria, where recent clashes between the interim government and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces mark another challenge for U.S. policy in the region.
And should the precarious Israel-Hamas peace process once again unravel, as it has on many past occasions, Trump emphasized Sunday on Truth Social that the alternative would be escalation.
Trump wrote: “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE OR, MASSIVE BLOODSHED WILL FOLLOW — SOMETHING THAT NOBODY WANTS TO SEE!”
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Pivotal talks between Israel and Hamas begin in Egypt on eve of Gaza war anniversary
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Israeli and Hamas officials launched indirect talks Monday at an Egyptian resort on a U.S.-drafted peace plan to end the ruinous war in Gaza on the eve of its second anniversary.Many uncertainties remain about the plan presented by President Donald Trump last week, including the disarmament of the militant group — a key Israeli demand — and the future governance of Gaza. Trump has indicated an agreement on Gaza could pave the way for a Middle East peace process that could reshape the region.Despite Trump ordering Israel to stop the bombing, Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza with airstrikes, killing at least 19 people in the last 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said.An Egyptian official said talks began Monday afternoon at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.The Israelis are led by top negotiator Ron Dermer, while Khalil al-Hayyah leads the Hamas delegation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk would be present for Israel, but it was not clear if Dermer had arrived yet.Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News television station reported that the talks began with a meeting between Arab mediators and the Hamas delegation. Mediators will then meet with the Israeli delegation, the station said.Egyptian and Qatari mediators will discuss the outcome of their meetings with both parties, before U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff joins the talks, it said.Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also expected to join the talks, Egypt’s state-run al-Ahram reported.Hamas said negotiations will focus on the first stage of a ceasefire, including the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces as well as the release of hostages held by the militants in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention.This latest push for peace comes after Hamas accepted some elements of the U.S. plan that Israel also said it supported. Under the plan, Hamas would release the remaining 48 hostages — about 20 of whom are believed to be alive — within three days. It would give up power and disarm.The talks in Egypt are expected to move quickly. Netanyahu said they would be “confined to a few days maximum,” though some Hamas officials have warned that more time may be needed to locate bodies of hostages buried under rubble.Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi hailed Trump’s efforts, underscoring the importance of preserving the U.S.-crafted “peace system” in the Middle East since the 1970s, which he said “served as a strategic framework for regional stability.”El-Sisi spoke in a televised address commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1973 war with Israel that led to Egypt reclaiming the Sinai Peninsula, where Sharm el-Sheikh is located.US wants Israeli bombing to stopThe U.S. has said Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza would need to stop for the hostages to be released. Israel says it’s largely heeding Trump’s call. The Israeli military said it is mostly carrying out defensive strikes to protect troops, though dozens of Palestinians have been killed since the military’s statement Saturday night.Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that the bodies of 19 people, including two aid-seekers killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire, had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours. Another 96 were wounded. The deaths brought the Palestinian toll to 67,160 since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war, with nearly 170,000 wounded, the ministry said.The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. Most of the largely Israeli hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.Meanwhile, families of Israeli hostages petitioned the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump for what they called his unprecedented contributions to global peace.“At this very moment, President Trump’s comprehensive plan to release all remaining hostages and finally end this terrible war is on the table,” the families wrote. “For the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over.”In a commemoration ceremony for Israelis killed at the Nir Oz Kibbutz on Oct. 7, Daniel Lifshitz said the primary focus of talks should be the swift release of all remaining hostages.“Israel will pay painful concessions by releasing mass murderers and terrorists that killed many among our friends and families here in Israel, but we cherish life and in Trump we trust to make it happen,” said Lifshitz, grandson of slain hostage Oded and released hostage Yocheved Lifshitz.’Living in fear, war and displacement’In Gaza, families of Palestinian babies born on the day the war began hoped to celebrate their second birthday with the sound of laughter and cheers instead of the cacophony of bombs and bullets.The babies’ mothers have been repeatedly displaced and live in constant fear for their safety. They also lack access to health care.Amal al-Taweel and her husband, Mostafa, had their son, Ali, after three years of trying for a child. They now live in a tent without proper sanitation, food, vaccinations or toys.“I was envisioning a different life for him … He couldn’t experience what a safe family life feels like,” al-Taweel said.The Vatican marked the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks by condemning the “inhuman massacre” of innocent people in Israel and calling for the return of hostages. But it also said Israel’s razing of Gaza is itself a disproportionate massacre, and called on countries to stop supplying Israel weapons to wage the war.“Those who are attacked have a right to defend themselves, but even legitimate defense must respect the principle of proportionality,” Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said on the eve of the anniversary. “The perverse chain of hatred can only generate a spiral that leads nowhere good.”___Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
CAIRO —Israeli and Hamas officials launched indirect talks Monday at an Egyptian resort on a U.S.-drafted peace plan to end the ruinous war in Gaza on the eve of its second anniversary.
Many uncertainties remain about the plan presented by President Donald Trump last week, including the disarmament of the militant group — a key Israeli demand — and the future governance of Gaza. Trump has indicated an agreement on Gaza could pave the way for a Middle East peace process that could reshape the region.
Despite Trump ordering Israel to stop the bombing, Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza with airstrikes, killing at least 19 people in the last 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said.
An Egyptian official said talks began Monday afternoon at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.
The Israelis are led by top negotiator Ron Dermer, while Khalil al-Hayyah leads the Hamas delegation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk would be present for Israel, but it was not clear if Dermer had arrived yet.
Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News television station reported that the talks began with a meeting between Arab mediators and the Hamas delegation. Mediators will then meet with the Israeli delegation, the station said.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators will discuss the outcome of their meetings with both parties, before U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff joins the talks, it said.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also expected to join the talks, Egypt’s state-run al-Ahram reported.
Hamas said negotiations will focus on the first stage of a ceasefire, including the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces as well as the release of hostages held by the militants in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention.
This latest push for peace comes after Hamas accepted some elements of the U.S. plan that Israel also said it supported. Under the plan, Hamas would release the remaining 48 hostages — about 20 of whom are believed to be alive — within three days. It would give up power and disarm.
The talks in Egypt are expected to move quickly. Netanyahu said they would be “confined to a few days maximum,” though some Hamas officials have warned that more time may be needed to locate bodies of hostages buried under rubble.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi hailed Trump’s efforts, underscoring the importance of preserving the U.S.-crafted “peace system” in the Middle East since the 1970s, which he said “served as a strategic framework for regional stability.”
El-Sisi spoke in a televised address commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1973 war with Israel that led to Egypt reclaiming the Sinai Peninsula, where Sharm el-Sheikh is located.
US wants Israeli bombing to stop
The U.S. has said Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza would need to stop for the hostages to be released. Israel says it’s largely heeding Trump’s call. The Israeli military said it is mostly carrying out defensive strikes to protect troops, though dozens of Palestinians have been killed since the military’s statement Saturday night.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that the bodies of 19 people, including two aid-seekers killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire, had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours. Another 96 were wounded. The deaths brought the Palestinian toll to 67,160 since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war, with nearly 170,000 wounded, the ministry said.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. Most of the largely Israeli hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals.
Meanwhile, families of Israeli hostages petitioned the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump for what they called his unprecedented contributions to global peace.
“At this very moment, President Trump’s comprehensive plan to release all remaining hostages and finally end this terrible war is on the table,” the families wrote. “For the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over.”
In a commemoration ceremony for Israelis killed at the Nir Oz Kibbutz on Oct. 7, Daniel Lifshitz said the primary focus of talks should be the swift release of all remaining hostages.
“Israel will pay painful concessions by releasing mass murderers and terrorists that killed many among our friends and families here in Israel, but we cherish life and in Trump we trust to make it happen,” said Lifshitz, grandson of slain hostage Oded and released hostage Yocheved Lifshitz.
‘Living in fear, war and displacement’
In Gaza, families of Palestinian babies born on the day the war began hoped to celebrate their second birthday with the sound of laughter and cheers instead of the cacophony of bombs and bullets.
The babies’ mothers have been repeatedly displaced and live in constant fear for their safety. They also lack access to health care.
Amal al-Taweel and her husband, Mostafa, had their son, Ali, after three years of trying for a child. They now live in a tent without proper sanitation, food, vaccinations or toys.
“I was envisioning a different life for him … He couldn’t experience what a safe family life feels like,” al-Taweel said.
The Vatican marked the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks by condemning the “inhuman massacre” of innocent people in Israel and calling for the return of hostages. But it also said Israel’s razing of Gaza is itself a disproportionate massacre, and called on countries to stop supplying Israel weapons to wage the war.
“Those who are attacked have a right to defend themselves, but even legitimate defense must respect the principle of proportionality,” Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said on the eve of the anniversary. “The perverse chain of hatred can only generate a spiral that leads nowhere good.”
___
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
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