Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’/node/2607999/middle-east
Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
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US President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks with the media after attending the FIFA Club World Cup final upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on July 13, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 14 July 2025
AFP
Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
US backing 60-day ceasefire with phased release of hostages and Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza
Indirect negotiations in Doha appeared deadlocked at the weekend
Updated 14 July 2025
AFP
DOHA: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.
The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages.
In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Younis in the south.
One strike on a tent in Khan Younis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.
Belal Al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death.”
AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.
Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“Gaza, we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4.
A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors.
But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied media reports that any meeting between the two was on the agenda.
In Israel, Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire when a deal for a temporary truce is agreed and only when Hamas lays down its weapons.
But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and with public frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostages and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, his fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but Netanyahu is seen as beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house displaced Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described the proposed facility as a “concentration camp” and Israel’s own security establishment is reported to be unhappy at the plan.
Israeli media said the costs were discussed at a security cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office on Sunday night, just hours before his latest court appearance in a long-running corruption trial on Monday.
Hamas’s attacks on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of which 49 are still being held, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,026 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Netanyahu gambled by targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar. It appears to have backfired
The airstrike has enraged Qatar, an influential US ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, and drawn heavy criticism across the Arab world
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that after the strike, there's no valid anymore to continue ceasefire talks
Updated 14 September 2025
AP
JERUSALEM: When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered this week’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Qatar, he took a major gamble in his campaign to pound the group into submission.
With signs growing that the mission failed, that gamble appears to have backfired.
Netanyahu had hoped to kill Hamas’ senior exiled leaders to get closer toward his vision of “total victory” against the militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and pressure it into surrendering after nearly two years of war in the Gaza Strip.
Instead, Hamas claims its leaders survived, and Netanyahu’s global standing, already badly damaged by the scenes of destruction and humanitarian disaster in Gaza, took another hit.
This frame grab taken from an AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after an Israeli airstrike in Qatar's capital Doha on September 9, 2025. (AFP)
The airstrike Tuesday has enraged Qatar, an influential US ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, and drawn heavy criticism across the Arab world. It also has strained relations with the White House and thrown hopes of reaching a ceasefire into disarray, potentially endangering the 20 hostages still believed to be alive in Gaza.
But while the strike marks a setback for Netanyahu, the Israeli leader shows no sign of backing down or halting the war. And with his hard-line coalition still firmly behind him, Netanyahu faces no immediate threat to his rule. Netanyahu’s hope for an ‘image of victory’ for his government
Five low-level Hamas members and a Qatari security guard were killed in the strike. But Hamas has said the intended target, senior exiled leaders meeting to discuss a new US ceasefire proposal, all survived. The group, however, has not released any photos of the leaders, and Qatar has not commented on their conditions.
If the airstrike had killed the top leadership, the attack could have provided Netanyahu an opportunity declare Hamas’ destruction, said Harel Chorev, an expert on Arab affairs at Tel Aviv University.
“It’s all very symbolic and it’s definitely part of the thing which allows Netanyahu at a certain point to say ‘We won, we killed them all,’” he said.
Israel’s fierce 23-month offensive in Gaza has wiped out all of Hamas’ top leadership inside the territory. But Netanyahu has set out to eradicate the group as part of his goal of “total victory.”
Displaced Palestinians evacuate southbound from Gaza City, traveling on foot and by vehicle, along the coastal road in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on September 13, 2025, amid another Israeli military offensive. (AFP)
That is now looking increasingly unlikely, making it even harder for Netanyahu to push a ceasefire through his hard-line coalition.
Far-right members of Israel’s governing coalition have cornered Netanyahu, threatening to topple his government unless Israel pushes ahead with an expanded operation in Gaza City, despite serious misgivings by many in the military leadership and widespread opposition among Israel’s public.
A successful operation in Qatar could have allowed Netanyahu to placate the hard-liners, even though it would have eliminated the very officials responsible for negotiating a possible ceasefire. Burning the channel with Qatar
Israel has had the ability to target Hamas leaders in Doha from the start of the war but did not want to antagonize the Qataris while negotiations took place, Chorev said.
Qatar has helped negotiate two previous ceasefires that have released 148 hostages, including eight bodies, in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s military has rescued just eight hostages alive, and retrieved the bodies of 51 hostages.
While Israel has complained that Qatar was not putting pressure on Hamas, it had continued to leave that channel open — until Tuesday.
“Israel, by the attack, notified the whole world that it gave up on the negotiations,” Chorev said. “They’ve decided to burn the channel with Qatar.”
Asked if ceasefire talks would continue, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that after the strike, “I don’t think there’s anything valid” in the current talks. But he did not elaborate and stopped short of saying Qatar would end its mediation efforts.
How Netanyahu hopes to win the release of the remaining hostages remains unclear.
Protesters join a demonstration at 'Hostage Square' in Tel Aviv on September 13, 2025, calling on Israel for a ceasefire in its war on Gaza so as not to endanger the lives of the captives captives still in the hands of Palestinian militants. (AFP)
On Thursday, Sheikh Mohammed accused Israel of abandoning the hostages.
“Extremists that rule Israel today do not care about the hostages — otherwise, how do we justify the timing of this attack?” Sheikh Mohammed told the UN Security Council.
Nonetheless, he said his country was ready to resume its mediation without giving any indication of next steps. On Friday, Sheikh Mohammed met in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was scheduled to visit Israel this weekend in a sign of how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies.
Straining ties with the US
Netanyahu, who has received ironclad support from the US since President Donald Trump returned to office, appears to have strained ties with his most important ally.
Trump said he was “very unhappy” about the airstrike and assured the Qataris such an attack would not happen again.
Trump, however, has not said whether he would take any punitive action against Israel or indicated that he will pressure Netanyahu to halt the war.
N
Protesters join a demonstration at 'Hostage Square' in Tel Aviv on September 13, 2025, calling on Israel for a ceasefire in its war on Gaza so as not to endanger the lives of the captives captives still in the hands of Palestinian militants. (AFP)
etanyahu, in the meantime, remains undeterred and threatened additional action if Qatar continues to host the Hamas leadership.
The message to Hamas is clear, he said Thursday: “There is no place where we cannot reach you.” Little impact on the war in Gaza
Israel is pressing ahead with its expanded offensive aimed at conquering Gaza City. The military has urged a full evacuation of the area holding around 1 million people ahead of an expected invasion.
“Netanyahu’s government is adamant to go on with the military operation in Gaza,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Israel has brushed off calls to halt the war from the United Nations, the European Union and a growing number of major Western countries who plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council later this month, she said.
The only one who might be able to change this trajectory is Trump, she added, by telling Israel “enough is enough.” Netanyahu’s political future unthreatened
If Hamas’ leaders survived, and the negotiations collapse, Netanyahu will further alienate the roughly two-thirds of the Israeli public who want an end to the war and a deal to bring home the hostages.
But that opposition has been in place for months, with little influence on Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu’s future in the near term doesn’t depend on the Israeli public,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
Instead, his political survival depends on his governing coalition, many of whom have expressed wholehearted support for the assassination attempt.
This has sparked panic and more suffering for the families of the hostages still held in Gaza.
Einav Zangauker, whose son, Matan, is among the captives, said this week she was “shaking with fear” after hearing about Israel’s attack in Doha.
“Why does the prime minister insist on blowing up every chance for a deal?” she asked, on the verge of tears. “Why?”
Rubio to begin Israel visit in aftermath of Qatar strike
The talk of a ceasefire, still out of reach after months of failed negotiations, came as Israel has been intensifying its campaign in the Gaza Strip
Updated 14 September 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: Top US diplomat Marco Rubio begins a visit to Israel on Sunday, after expressing the Trump administration’s unwavering support for its ally in the war with Hamas following a strike in Qatar that drew broad criticism of Israel.
The trip is taking place after President Donald Trump rebuked Israel over the unprecedented attack against Hamas leaders meeting in an upscale neighborhood of Doha on Tuesday.
It marked Israel’s first such strike against US ally Qatar and has put renewed strain on diplomatic efforts to bring about a truce in war-ravaged Gaza.
Before departing for the region on Saturday, Rubio told reporters that while Trump was “not happy” about the strike, it was “not going to change the nature of our relationship with the Israelis.”
But he added that the United States and Israel were “going to have to talk about” its impact on truce efforts.
Trump has chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the attack, which targeted Hamas leaders gathering to discuss a new ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States.
Netanyahu has defended the operation, saying on Saturday that killing senior Hamas officials would remove the “main obstacle” to ending the war.
The talk of a ceasefire, still out of reach after months of failed negotiations, came as Israel has been intensifying its campaign in the Gaza Strip.
In recent days, it has ramped up efforts to seize control of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban area, telling residents to evacuate and blowing up numerous high-rise buildings it said were being used by Hamas.
While thousands of people have evacuated the city, according to the Israeli military and Hamas, many more remain.
As of late August, the UN estimated that around one million people were living in the city and its surrounding areas, where it has declared a famine it blamed on Israeli aid restrictions.
Bakri Diab, who fled western Gaza City for the south, said Israeli strikes continued there as well.
“All the occupation has done is force people to crowd into places with no basic services and no safety,” said the 35-year-old father of four.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 32 people were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defense agency or the Israeli military.
- ‘One obstacle’ -
Netanyahu and his government have defied international criticism throughout the nearly two-year war, but it continued to mount this week.
On Friday, the UN General Assembly voted to back a revival of the two-state solution, in open defiance of Israeli opposition.
Israeli allies Britain and France, alongside several other Western nations, are set to recognize Palestinian statehood at a UN gathering this month out of exasperation at Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war and in the occupied West Bank.
London and Paris, joined by Berlin, also called for an immediate halt to Israel’s offensive in Gaza City.
Nevertheless, Israel retains the backing of its most powerful ally and biggest arms supplier, the United States.
Ahead of Rubio’s visit, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the diplomatic chief would show “our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism.”
“He will also emphasize our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home.”
At home, opponents of the Netanyahu government have sought to put pressure on ministers to end the war in return for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
On Saturday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main campaign group, accused the Israeli premier of being the “one obstacle” to freeing the hostages and accused him of repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire efforts.
Of the 251 people taken hostage by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
- ‘Alarming passivity’ -
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Rubio was unlikely to push Israel toward a ceasefire.
“There is an alarming passivity in actually getting to a ceasefire in Gaza,” said Katulis, who worked on Middle East policy under former president Bill Clinton.
“The administration seems to be listening more to its own base of Huckabees and other evangelical Christians allied with right-wing Israelis,” he said, referring to the US Ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor.
In Jerusalem, Rubio will visit the Western Wall with Netanyahu on Sunday, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 64,803 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Basel Adra says his home in West Bank raided by Israeli soldiers
Adra has spent his career as a journalist and filmmaker chronicling settler violence in Masafer Yatta, the southern reaches of West Bank where he was born
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem
Updated 14 September 2025
AP
JERUSALEM: Palestinian Oscar-winning director Basel Adra said that Israeli soldiers conducted a raid at his West Bank home on Saturday, searching for him and going through his wife’s phone.
Israeli settlers attacked his village, injuring two of his brothers and one cousin, Adra told The Associated Press. He accompanied them to the hospital. While there, he said that he heard from family in the village that nine Israeli soldiers had stormed his home.
The soldiers asked his wife, Suha, for his whereabouts and went through her phone, he said, while his 9-month-old daughter was home. They also briefly detained one of his uncles, he said.
As of Saturday night, Adra said he had no way of returning home to check on his family, because soldiers were blocking the entrance to the village and he was scared of being detained.
Israel’s military said that soldiers were in the village after Palestinians had thrown rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians. It said its forces were still in the village, searching the area and questioning people.
Adra has spent his career as a journalist and filmmaker chronicling settler violence in Masafer Yatta, the southern reaches of West Bank where he was born. After settlers attacked his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, in March, he told the AP that he felt they were being targeted more intensely since winning the Oscar.
He described Saturday’s events as “horrific.”
“Even if you are just filming the settlers, the army comes and chases you, searches your house,” he said. “The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us, to make us very scared.”
Another co-director, Yuval Abraham, said he was “terrified for Basel.”
“What happened today in his village, we’ve seen this dynamic again and again, where the Israeli settlers brutally attack a Palestinian village and later on the army comes, and attacks the Palestinians.”
“No Other Land,” which won an Oscar this year for best documentary, depicts the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened the documentary.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians. There also has been a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Libya government reaches agreement with armed group to end Tripoli tensions
Negotiations between the government and the Radaa Force were reportedly facilitated by Turkiye
The Radaa Force controls the east of the capital and Mitiga airport, as well as prisons and detention centers
Updated 13 September 2025
AFP
TRIPOLI: Libya’s UN-recognized government based in Tripoli has reached a preliminary accord with a powerful armed group to end months of tensions that have flared into occasional violence, a government adviser and local media said Saturday.
Negotiations between the government and the Radaa Force were facilitated by Turkiye, according to the same sources.
Ziyad Deghem, an adviser to the head of the Presidential Council transitional body, said the details of the accord “will be announced to the public at a later date.”
Neither Radaa nor the government have so far made any official comments.
However, Libyan broadcaster Al-Ahrar on Saturday posted on X a video that it said showed defense ministry forces entering an airport controlled by Radaa.
The North African country is still plagued by division and instability after years of unrest following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
It remains divided between the UN-recognized government in the west and its eastern rival, backed by military commander Khalifa Haftar.
In mid-May, there were clashes in Tripoli between forces loyal to the government and armed groups that the authorities are trying to dismantle.
Among them is the Radaa Force, which controls the east of the capital and Mitiga airport, as well as prisons and detention centers.
According to a source within the group, cited by Al-Ahrah, the two parties agreed to a “neutral and unified force... managing and securing four airports” in the west, including Mitiga.
The airport, controlled by Radaa since 2011, is the only one to serve the Libyan capital with commercial flights.
Prisons and detention centers managed by the Radaa Force are set to come under the authority of the Attorney General’s office, according to Al-Ahrar.
Speaking on the channel, Deghem thanked Turkiye “for its exceptional efforts” and the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL) for its “essential and decisive” mediation.
Israeli hostages forum says Netanyahu ‘obstacle’ to ending Gaza war
“Every time a deal approaches, Netanyahu sabotages it,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement
Earlier in the evening, Netanyahu said eliminating Hamas leaders in Qatar would bring an end to the war
Updated 14 September 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: The main Israeli group campaigning for the release of hostages held in Gaza said Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the chief obstacle to freeing the captives, shortly after he accused Hamas’s leaders of prolonging the war.
“The targeted operation in Qatar proved beyond any doubt that there is one obstacle to returning the... hostages and ending the war: Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement, referring to Israel’s recent strike on a meeting of Hamas members in the Gulf state.
“Every time a deal approaches, Netanyahu sabotages it,” they added.
Earlier in the evening, the premier had said eliminating Hamas’s leaders in Qatar would bring an end to the war, accusing the group of derailing past efforts to secure a ceasefire.
This photo posted on X under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's account shows himself and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee in s cornerstone-laying ceremony for a promenade named after US President Donald Trump in Bat Yam city, Israel. relatives of hostages still being held by Hamas accuse Netanyahu of deceiving Trump to keep his support for his plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza. (X: @netanyahu)
“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza. They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war,” he said on X.
“Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”
The forum, however, characterized the accusation as Netanyahu’s latest “excuse” for failing to bring home the captives.
“The time has come to end the excuses designed to buy time so he can cling to power,” the forum said.
“This stalling... threatens the lives of additional hostages who are barely surviving after nearly two years in captivity, as well as the recovery of those who have died.
Protesters join a demonstration at 'Hostage Square' in Tel Aviv on September 13, 2025, calling on Israel for a ceasefire in its war on Gaza so as not to endanger the lives of the captives captives still in the hands of Palestinian militants. (AFP)
Palestinian militants led by Hamas abducted 251 people during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Forty-seven of the captives are still held in Gaza, including 25 the military says are dead.
Thousands of Israelis massed in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, calling on the government to end the war and strike a deal to return hostages, an AFP correspondent reported.
