TheChek News Flow

Palestinians continued to report explosions and deaths in Gaza, adding to uncertainty around President Trump’s peace plan

President Trump is sending his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Egypt in the coming days to help complete a hostage release deal, U.S. and Arab officials said Saturday, after Hamas and Israel backed his 20-point proposal to end the war but with reservations that need to be ironed out.

The high-profile delegation shows Trump’s seriousness about securing a deal, despite significant concerns about the terms among all the parties involved. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who played a crucial role in negotiating normalization accords between several Arab countries and Israel during Trump’s first term, helped craft the current plan and will now try to close the gaps and get it implemented.

“After negotiations, Israel has agreed to the initial withdrawal line, which we have shown to, and shared with, Hamas,” Trump wrote Saturday afternoon on Truth Social. “When Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be IMMEDIATELY effective, the Hostages and Prisoner Exchange will begin, and we will create the conditions for the next phase of withdrawal, which will bring us close to the end of this 3,000 YEAR CATASTROPHE.”

Earlier in the day, Trump made clear the onus is on Hamas to move things forward. “Hamas must move quickly, or else all bets will be off,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I will not tolerate delay, which many think will happen, or any outcome where Gaza poses a threat again.”

While Israel and Hamas have each said they accept the hostage release deal, both hinted at significant points of disagreement.

Hamas’s agreement to release all of its Israeli hostages came with caveats around the timeline for Israeli troop withdrawals, demands that it surrender its weapons, as well as guarantees over ending the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Israel would prepare the ground for the hostage release but indicated he would only work to end the war on Israel’s and Trump’s terms.

“I hope that god willing in the coming days, as soon as during the Sukkot holiday, we will be able to announce the return of all of our hostages, the living and the dead, in one transfer, while the IDF remains deep inside the Strip,” Netanyahu said Saturday, referring to a Jewish religious holiday that starts next week. He used the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.

An Israeli delegation will be dispatched for the talks in the coming days and is expected to include Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer, along with the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency and other top officials, a person familiar with the matter said.

The reservations expressed by the warring parties and the unclear situation on the battlefield highlight the fragility of the completion and implementation of Trump’s 20-point plan.

Despite the caveats, Trump welcomed Hamas’s response as an acceptance of his plan and said the battlefield needed to be made safe for a hostage release. He also indicated that talks would be needed to close gaps between the parties.

“We have to get the final word down in concrete,” the president said in an address from the White House. “I look forward to having the hostages come home.”

Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, has played a leading role in negotiating cease-fire deal proposals between Israel and Hamas. A real-estate investor before entering the Trump administration, Witkoff has also balanced the Middle East assignment he oversees with brokering peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

A January deal between Israel and Hamas—the last major agreement between the warring parties, which was in part brokered by Witkoff—brought temporary calm to the enclave and returned 33 hostages, dead and alive, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli detention. Israel began striking Gaza again in March, after it said talks to extend the cease-fire broke down. The conflict has continued without a major deal since then, with 48 hostages remaining inside Gaza, including about 20 who Israel believes are still alive, some in Gaza City.

Trump’s peace plan, if adopted as laid out on Monday, would see the president chair a “Board of Peace” to oversee the interim governance of Gaza. Aid would flow into the enclave and an Arab-led stabilization force would enter to keep order. Israeli forces would, over time, withdraw from the battlefield while maintaining a security buffer zone around Gaza. Hamas would lay down its arms while renouncing its leadership role.

Israel’s military signaled it was easing its offensive operations in Gaza, hours after Trump called for an end to the bombing.

“The cessation of the IDF’s offensive activity in the Gaza Strip is intended to allow Hamas to begin preparations for the release of the hostages,” an Israeli official said. “This is not the official cease-fire.”

IDF troops early Saturday continued to surround Gaza City, where Israel has worked to clear out the civilian population with a major offensive under way.

First responders and municipal officials in Gaza reported explosions Saturday. Footage aired on Al Jazeera showed Palestinian casualties being taken on stretchers in ambulances Saturday morning.

An Israeli military spokesman warned Palestinians on Saturday morning that the area around Gaza City remains a dangerous combat zone and that staying poses a significant risk. The military declined to say whether it would continue its attack, but said that its troops must remain alert and ready to respond to threats.

Palestinians in Gaza are demanding a reprieve from the fighting, which has killed more than 67,000 people, with dozens killed in the past day, according to local health authorities, who don’t specify how many were combatants. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced several times by the war. Many have faced persistent shortages of food, and large parts of the enclave have been reduced to rubble by the fighting.

Hani Ramadan, a father of two children living in an apartment in Gaza’s Nuseirat area, said the Trump plan, at the least, would stop the war. “We have reached a stage where we just want any solution whereby we will not be targeted. We want to eat, drink and live.”

Over the past week, the mediators said Qatar, Egypt and Turkey—the countries with which Hamas has some of the closest ties—have warned the group’s leaders that this is their last chance to end the war in Gaza, which began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.