Hamas and Israel support own versions of peace plan

Friday night brought flickers of what almost everyone – bar Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme right, warmongering cabinet ministers – has been desperate for. News of a ceasefire, and a possible plan to free Gaza from the slaughterhouse it has become over the last two years.

- BEL TREW CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT

Hamas tentatively welcomed Donald Trump’s efforts, as well as those of the international community and Arab states, to end the devastating war.

The militant group, responsible for the bloody attacks on 7 October 2023, agreed to release all the remaining 48 hostages both dead and alive - “according to the exchange formula” in Trump’s 20-point plan.

This, they added, would be done “in a manner that achieves an end to the war”. It followed Netanyahu’s endorsement of Trump’s plan last week, albeit with his own interpretations.

So, is this the moment millions have been dreaming of and campaigning for? The end to mass slaughter in Gaza? To what the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded was genocide? To the two-year-long nightmare for the families of Israeli hostages and captives? The end to a region-wide war that has pushed the world to the brink?

Trump, who has campaigned as the peacemaking president and has eyed up the Nobel Peace Prize, certainly thinks so: “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! This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long-sought PEACE in the Middle East,” he wrote on Truth Social.