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On September 29th, President Trump announced, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a ceasefire plan to end Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Trump gave the Palestinian Militant group, Hamas, until Sunday to give in to the peace plans or else.
“If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.” Trump posted on Truth Social. “THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER”.
The Gaza Peace Plan has 20 points in total, including the promise of full aid being sent to Gaza once all sides agreed to the plan, and all Israeli hostages, living and deceased, would be returned to Israel. It also contains several edits from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly about the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)’s remaining duration in Gaza and disarming Hamas.
According to Middle East Eye, key Middle Eastern leaders were “shocked” when Trump unveiled the 20 points, with many different dramatically from what they had previously seen. Apparently the edits were made by Netanyahu late in the negotiations.
“Original drafts mandated 600 aid trucks entering Gaza per day, while the new version’s vague language afforded no such commitment,” the outlet wrote. “Where previously hundreds of Palestinian prisoners were to have been released alongside 1,700 men, women and children detained from Gaza, now just 250 inmates would be freed with the detainees”.
An “international stabilization force” now appears to sound very much like something similar to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that was responsible for manning the murderous aid distribution points, and that it might even be controlled by Israel. As already mentioned, Israeli troops are now to withdraw in a staggered manner without clear deadlines. A “security zone” is also put in place by the now draft agreement, which suggests a permanent military presence.
The Israeli Prime Minister would post about the “success” of the meeting with Trump in a video via X.
“Instead of Hamas isolating us, we (Israel) are turning the tables and isolating Hamas”, said Netanyahu in a video update posted on X.
Netanyahu continues, “Now the Entire World, including the Arab and the Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the terms that we (Israel) made with President Trump, to release the Hostages – While the IDF remains in the Strip”.
Hamas agreed to most parts of the deal and was willing to end the war in Gaza.
“Hamas appreciates the Arab, Islamic, and International efforts, as well as the efforts of US President Donald Trump, calling for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, the exchange of prisoners, the immediate entry of aid, the rejection of the occupation of the Strip, and the rejection of the displacement of our Palestinian people from it,” said a statement from Hamas responding to what Trump posted on Truth Social.
Eight countries, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Turkey, released a joint statement that expressed support for ending the war and a willingness to work together with the Trump Administration to ensure the peace deal goes smoothly, despite the edits that shocked them.
Since October 7th, over 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in the onslaught. After two years of violence, each of the relevant United Nations organs have officially declared the war in Gaza to be a genocide. Each attempt at negotiations previously to end violence between Palestinian organizations and the Jewish state have failed, not least because the Israelis have repeatedly sabotaged those negotiations.
The case of Area C
No figure in Israeli politics has been more quick to sabotage negotiations with the Palestinians than Netanyahu. His penchant for unilaterally inserting obviously impossible conditions and terms, and getting American and other negotiators to accept them, is on show again, but it famously sabotaged the second rendition of the Oslo Accords.
Signed by Israel in 1996, but never ratified, Netanyahu was filmed semi-secretly explaining that he capitalized on the fact that neither the negotiating team for then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, nor the Americans, nor Yasser Arafat, ever took to define what were the West Bank’s “military facilities,” which as part of the Oslo II Accord, Israel could maintain control of.
“So I also defined them as security zones,” he explained in the video, in Hebrew. “The entire Jordan Valley is for me a ‘military facility'”.
He received a letter from President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State that said Israel would define the military facilities, and Arafat, according to Netanyahu, received a similar letter. Netanyahu has been caught lying before, but history would show, and Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem reports, that only 5% of Palestinian building permits were approved in the Jordan Valley, also called Area C, from 2000 to 2012.
The UN has repeatedly found similar statistics. Israeli planning in Area C allocates 13 times more space to Israeli settlers than to Palestinians there, according to the United Nations. The Oslo agreement would have seen Area C be transferred to Palestinian control gradually, but this never took place.
Over 60% of the entire land area known as the West Bank is made up of Area C, and contains most of the region’s natural resources. 20% of this is designated a security zone.
Of course this isn’t the only peace process that has been torpedoed by unilateral Israeli demands. The Camp David Summit, not to be confused with the meeting that ended the Israel-Egyptian hostilities in 1978, was hosted again by Clinton and failed because Israeli demands over their hostage population of Arabs were beyond the pale as far as something Arafat could have brought back to his people.
Clinton’s aides admitted in the years that followed the failed 14-day meeting in the year 2000 that the Palestinians came with concessions—in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—yet the Israeli’s wanted a 9-to-1 ratio for land swaps, sovereignty over Arab quarters in Jerusalem and over certain Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Shlomo Ben-Ami, then Israel’s Minister of Foreign Relations who participated in the talks, admitted in 2006 that “Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well”.
Meeting in Egypt
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the implementation of a potential Gaza ceasefire deal began in Egypt on Monday as the Israeli military continued to launch attacks in Gaza despite President Trump’s calls for a halt to the bombing. 90% of all buildings in the Strip have been destroyed since October 7th.
Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since Trump’s demand. The Israeli side is led by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and Hamas is represented by Khalil al-Hayya, whom Israel recently attempted to assassinate in Qatar.
Key points will be a guarantee that Israel withdraws from Gaza after Hamas gives up the hostages—the group’s only leverage. WaL
We Humbly Ask For Your Support—Follow the link here to see all the ways, monetary and non-monetary.
PICTURED: Gaza in ruins. PC: Jaber Jehad Badwan © via Wikimedia Commons
