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GAZA STRIP: Two envoys of US President Donald Trump headed to Egypt on Saturday to discuss the release of hostages in Gaza, after Hamas agreed to his ceasefire proposal, while Israeli forces launched deadly strikes across the territory.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff were expected to finalize details on the release of hostages and discuss a deal pushed by Trump to end the nearly two-year war between Israel and Hamas, a White House official said.

Egyptian state-linked media reported that Israel and Hamas would also hold indirect talks in Cairo on Sunday and Monday over a detainees and hostages exchange.

The talks come after Trump urged Israel to halt its bombardment of Gaza, following Hamas’s announcement that it was ready to release all the hostages and begin negotiations on the ceasefire proposal.

“The movement announces its approval for the release of all hostages — living and remains — according to the exchange formula included in President Trump’s proposal,” Hamas said in a Friday statement.

Trump later posted on Truth Social: “Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!“

On Saturday, he had a warning for Hamas, telling the group he would “not tolerate delay” on the peace deal.

Israel meanwhile conducted deadly strikes across Gaza on Saturday.

At least 39 people were killed since dawn Saturday, according to Mohammed Abu Salmiya, head of Gaza’s main Al-Shifa Hospital.

Salmiya said the dead included 34 people killed in Gaza City itself, where Israeli forces have carried out a sweeping air and ground assault in recent weeks.

“The Israeli bombardment on Gaza continues with the same intensity and pattern — air strikes, artillery shelling and quadcopter drone fire are ongoing,” said Mohammed Al-Mughayyir of Gaza’s civil defense, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.

- Call for ‘swift negotiations’ -

A Hamas official said Egypt, a mediator in the truce talks, would host a conference for Palestinian factions to decide on Gaza’s post-war future.

Al-Qahera News, which is closely linked to Egypt’s intelligence service, reported that delegations from Israel and Hamas “have begun moving to launch talks in Cairo tomorrow and the day after, to discuss arranging the ground conditions for the exchange of all detainees and prisoners, in accordance with Trump’s proposal.”

Trump’s plan calls for a halt to hostilities, the release of hostages within 72 hours, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’s disarmament.

It also stipulates that Hamas and other factions “not have any role in the governance of Gaza,” with administration of the territory instead taken up by a technocratic body overseen by a post-war transitional authority headed by Trump himself.

“President Trump’s demand to stop the war immediately is essential to prevent serious and irreversible harm to the hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group that has campaigned for the release of captives, said in a statement.

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the Gaza civil defense agency, told AFP that the night was “very violent,” adding that 20 homes were destroyed overnight.

The Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and warned residents not to return there.

“The IDF (Israeli military) troops are still operating in Gaza City, and returning to it is extremely dangerous. For your safety, avoid returning north or approaching areas of IDF troop activity anywhere — including in the southern Gaza Strip,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, said on X.

Israeli media reported that the military had shifted to a defensive posture in Gaza following Trump’s call, though the military did not confirm this to AFP.

Of those killed in Gaza City, 17 died in an Israeli air strike on the home of the Abdul Aal family in the city’s Al-Tuffa neighborhood, hospitals said.

- Gazans hail Trump -

Jamila Al-Sayyid, 24, a resident of Gaza City’s Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, said “I was happy when Trump announced a ceasefire, but the warplanes did not stop.”

An AFP journalist in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi reported hearing celebratory cries of “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest) from tents housing Palestinians as news of Hamas’s statement spread.

“The best thing is that President Trump himself announced a ceasefire, and Netanyahu will not be able to escape this time... he is the only one who can force Israel to comply and stop the war,” said Sami Adas, 50, who lives in a tent in Gaza City with his family.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 67,074 Palestinians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

Their data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.

LONDON: New details have emerged about Israel’s controversial support for the anti-Hamas Popular Forces militia in Gaza, including providing the group with weapons and assisting its combat operations with airstrikes.

The militia, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, the head of a former looting gang, is positioning itself to play a significant role in the future governance of Gaza.

An found that the militia is receiving aid from the US-funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and being allowed to smuggle cash, guns and vehicles into the Palestinian enclave by the Israel Defense Forces.

Experts warned that Israel’s support for the group is part of a divide and conquer strategy, in the same vein as Tel Aviv’s previous support for Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah.

The Sky team followed the movements and activities of Abu Shabab and his men for months. The militia operates from a largely intact area of southern Gaza where there are “ample supplies of food, medical facilities, a school and even a mosque,” Sky reported.

About 1,500 people are now living in the Popular Forces base, including 500-700 fighters, many of whom have joined in recent weeks as part of a recruitment drive. In total, the militia and its allies have about 3,000 fighters across Gaza.

The base is located on the route that aid trucks follow when entering the enclave through the Kerem Shalom crossing, giving the Popular Forces free access to loot supplies.

A UN report from last November found that Abu Shabab and his gang operate as “the most influential stakeholders behind the systematic and massive looting of convoys.”

The group’s primary source of cash flow was cigarette smuggling, the report added, highlighting that Israel had banned the entry of tobacco into Gaza, spiking the price of individual cigarettes to as high as $20 in some cases.

One aid worker told Sky: “Abu Shabab was empowered by cigarette smuggling. In that kind of curtailed environment, you’re going to get Abu Shababs.”

Militia member Hassan Abu Shabab told Sky that after Hamas killed dozens of his fellow fighters, Israel began allowing the controversial GHF to supply the Popular Forces base with food aid.

Officials from the UN Relief and Works Agency and the Norwegian Refugee Council told Sky that the supply of aid to an armed group contravenes humanitarian laws and the principle of impartiality.

An IDF soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Sky that the Israeli military is providing armaments to Yasser Abu Shabab and his men.

“Israel helps him. It gives him grenades, it gives him money, it gives him vehicles, it gives him food, it gives him all types of things,” the soldier said.

Videos published by Popular Forces members on TikTok show the militia’s fleet of vehicles, many of which display Israeli license plates.

Sky found evidence that suggested close coordination between the militia and the Israeli Air Force in anti-Hamas operations.

A Popular Forces unit was ambushed by Hamas fighters on April 13, south of the militia’s base in Rafah, resulting in four deaths. A day later, the house where the ambush took place was flattened by an Israeli airstrike.

Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Israel’s support of the militia is designed to make Palestinian resistance to occupation more difficult.

“The idea is that the more you can remove the hegemony of any particular (faction), the more difficult you make it for society to resist the occupation,” he told Sky.

Neve Gordon, a professor of international law at London’s Queen Mary University, told the channel: “The idea … is to try and turn Gaza into a land controlled by warlords in different parts, so there is no unity among the Palestinians.

“We can see what happens to countries that are divided by warlords, and the kind of internal struggles that emerge and often last years or decades.”