HAMAS has welcomed Trump’s statement that Israel should stop striking Gaza so that the second phase of the ceasefire can begin.
This comes in response to Netanyahu’s constant refusal to follow the peace plan by initiating Israeli withdrawal from the strip and and ceasing daily attacks.
The movement’s spokesman Hazem Qassem urged Washington on Monday to press Israel ‘to abide by what had been agreed upon to begin the second phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan’.
Trump had told Fox News the same day that Israel ‘should not be striking in Gaza’, reporting progress on disarmament and confirming that the United States keeps a separate channel to Hamas, which he said would lay down its arms if Israel met its obligations.
Air strikes, shelling and gunfire continue to kill and wound Palestinians almost daily.
Khalil Al-Hayya, head of the Hamas political bureau, briefed Palestinian factions in Cairo on Monday evening on his consultations with the Egyptian leadership, the mediators and the guarantors at Alamein since the roadmap for the second phase was approved.
Those present held Israel responsible for obstructing it, citing its rejection of the understandings, its failure to meet its first-phase commitments and its daily violations in Gaza and the West Bank, and warned against Palestinians being made the subject of an Israeli election campaign.
They called for relief and reconstruction to be accelerated, for the Palestinian house to be put in order on a basis of national and democratic partnership, and for practical steps towards self-determination and an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The health ministry put the number killed since the genocide began at 73,400, with 174,312 wounded.
Most oxygen generation stations in Gaza’s hospitals have now stopped working, the ministry has warned, because Israel will not allow in the spare parts and maintenance supplies needed to run them.
The loss of respiratory support has hit 72 intensive care units, 54 neonatal and premature baby units and 19 paediatric intensive care units, leaving critically ill patients at immediate risk of death.
The ministry asked for pressure on Israel to open the crossings.
The ceasefire agreement provides for 600 aid lorries a day, but international organisations record between only 100 and 200 getting through.
Demonstrations are to be held in 19 cities next Wednesday, World Humanitarian Day, among them Istanbul, demanding guaranteed access to food, medicine, shelter and healthcare.
Meanwhile, settlers, escorted by Israeli forces, attacked Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank yesterday, burning land, wrecking vehicles, cutting a water pipeline, driving farmers off their fields and extending outposts, while the siege of three homes at Qusra ran into its tenth day
