Israel has already started “the preparations” for the application of the Donald Trump’s peace plan in Gaza, which will begin with the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas, as announced this Saturday in a statement the office of the prime minister, Benjamín Netanyahu. His government has also ordered the troops that limit their activity in the strip to “defensive operations”, according to Israeli military radio, although this morning at least 20 people have died, including several children, in new bombing, according to Gazati sanitary sources.
On Friday night, the Palestinian militia accepted in broad strokes the proposal of 20 points of the president of the United States and the delivery of the last captives still held in the strip for two years: 48 people (only 20 of them alive).
“After Hamas’s response, Israel is preparing for the immediate application of the first phase of President Trump’s plan for the immediate release of all hostages,” says the statement, of only two paragraphs, of the Prime Minister’s office. The text continues: “We will continue to fully collaborate with the president and his team to end the war according to the principles established by Israel, which are consistent with the vision of President Trump.”
The second Palestinian armed group, the Islamic jihad, has joined this Saturday to Hamas’s response to Trump’s plan, which clears the way for the delivery of those hostages, some of which are in their possession. In a statement, this other militia has clarified that the reaction of Hamas “represents the position” of the “factions of the Palestinian resistance” and has been the result of consultations between them.
The proposal of 20 Trump points for Gaza provides immediate delivery, within 72 hours, of Israeli hostages, the end of bombings and a progressive withdrawal of Israel’s troops, which would maintain, however, a permanent presence in the perimeter of the territory. A Palestinian technocratic government would administer the current affairs of the Strip, but under the supervision of an international organism, chaired by Trump himself and in which the former British prime minister Tony Blair will also participate. The document – which only includes a specific term, that of the release of the kidnapped – also forces the Palestinian militia to deliver their weapons.
In his response, Hamas accepts the delivery of the hostages but asks for “negotiating the details” of that operation and expressly avoids entering thorny issues such as the international protection of the strip; However, Trump immediately gave it good. In a message on his social network, Truth clarified that the Palestinian group “is ready for lasting peace” and urged Israel to “immediately” stop the bombings in Gaza to “be able to take hostages safely.”
The forum that brings together the families of the kidnapped has joined this president of the president in a statement in which he affirms that “stopping the war immediately is essential to avoid serious and irreversible damage to hostages” and calls Netanyahu “to immediately begin effective and rapid negotiations to bring everyone back” the kidnapped.
Also in its response statement, Hamas conditions the release of the captives to be “the conditions for the process”, which in the document are the “suspension of all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardments.”
The president had imposed an ultimatum on the same day, which expired tomorrow Sunday at 6:00 p.m., Washington time (six more hours in Spanish peninsular hours), and threatened the militia to unleash “all hell” on Gaza if he rejected his proposal. The militia response finally came on Friday night.
In the early hours of this Saturday, shortly after the US president urged to stop the attacks, the Israeli government has ordered its troops to “reduce its activity” in the territory and limit it to “defensive operations”, according to the country’s military radio. Doron Kadosh, a journalist of that media, explained that, in practice, that means that “the operation to conquer the city of Gaza is being, for the moment, detained.”
Despite this, the Israeli army Arab spokesman, Avichay Adraee, has warned the Gazati this morning in a tweet that the northern half of Gaza, where the besieged capital is located, “continues to be considered a dangerous area.” The message also urges them to go south along the coastal road to Rashid.
The forces of the Israeli army “continue to surround Gaza City”, and return to it “represents an extreme danger,” warns the military spokesman.
A difficult hope
Meanwhile, the drip of victims continues, according to Palestinian sanitary sources. A person in charge of the Nasser Hospital has informed the Qatari chain to the Jazeera that the attack of an Israeli drone against a displaced store has killed two children in the area defined as “safe” by Israel de Al Mawasi, in southern Gaza. Four other people have died in a bombing in a house in Ciudad de Gaza and one more in an air attack in the center of the Strip, according to local sources cited by Reuters and the Palestinian agency Wafa.
In total, at least 20 people have died in Israeli attacks since midnight on Friday, that is, after Trump urged Israel to put them an end, according to the figures provided by the health authorities of the Strip.
In Deir El Balah, in the center of the territory, the morning has elapsed, however, relatively quietly, underlines Fidaa to Araj, a Palestine of Ciudad de Gaza that two weeks ago fled, for the seventh time since the beginning of the Israeli invasion, before the advance of the Israeli tanks.
“It is still too soon to know if the attacks have decreased,” he emphasizes; Above all, remember, because the center of the Palestinian territory does not usually suffer as many bombings as other areas of Gaza, especially its capital.
This woman is cautious. His hope was already frustrated in the previous high fire, on January: Israel broke it unilaterally two months after it came into force, and resumed the attacks even more strongly. “It’s hard to have hope,” he says to Araj. “Until we see how events develop, we cannot trust that this will stop.”
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