Trump-Gaza live: President optimistic for peace as US negotiators join third day of Israel-Hamas talks – UK Times

Hamas said on Tuesday it was ready to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza based on President Donald Trump’s plan but still has demands, as Qatar’s prime minister and senior U.S. mediators headed to Egypt to join indirect negotiations between the Palestinian militant group and Israel.

On the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Trump expressed optimism about progress toward a Gaza deal.

A US team including special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and his Middle East envoy during his first term, left for the talks.

“I think there’s a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East” beyond just Gaza, the US president told reporters in the Oval Office.

A source close to the talks said they had adjourned for the day and the atmosphere had been better than on Monday. Negotiations on Wednesday would be a decisive indicator of whether progress was possible given the presence of the senior mediators, the source said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani of Qatar, which has been one of the key mediators, will join the talks on Wednesday, an official told Reuters, “with the aim of pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement”.

Ruby Chen, the father of killed hostage Itay Chen, whose body is being held in Gaza, has hit out at Benjamin Netanyahu and others for referring to “20 hostages”.

Reference to the “20 hostages”, a figure which has been commonly mentioned in Israel, does not include the bodies of those still being held in Gaza.

“Even though we were notified [of his death], in my book, it doesn’t change his status as a hostage,” Mr Chen told The Independent.

“It’s very, very disappointing when the prime minister, even the president, says ‘20 hostages’.

“I was in the UN listening to Netanyahu speak and he started naming the hostages. He stopped after 20. I actually wanted to yell out, ‘What about Itay?’” he added.

Israelis marched in Jerusalem on Tuesday to call for the return of hostages still held in Gaza after two years of war.

Atalia Regev told the BBC she remembered waiting anxiously for a friend in kibbutz Be’eri to respond to texts during Hamas’ incursion.

Two years on, she says she and her partner, Bar, have always supported peace, but have lingering trust issues.

“We didn’t have any regular life for a long time. It was really, really hard,” she said.

One person was killed and another wounded in an Israeli drone strike in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said on Tuesday.

The drone was said to be targeting a car in Deir Aames, a town in the south.

The IDF is yet to comment.

Qatar, which has mediated in previous attempts to secure a ceasefire along with the United States and Egypt, has said many details still have to be ironed out to reach a full agreement between Israel and Hamas.

“The plan consists of 20 points, and all of these points require practical interpretations on the ground,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, told a press conference.

Hamas handing over hostages seized in the 2023 attack would mean the end of the war, he said.

Families of hostages still held in Gaza have endorsed Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize over his efforts to secure the release of the remaining captives.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Monday that “for the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over” as Trump’s plan to end the war was tabled in Egypt.

“We are confident that [Trump] will not rest until the last hostage is brought home, the war has ended, and peace and prosperity are restored to the people of the Middle East,” they said, calling on the committee to name the U.S. president as the laureate of the award this Friday.

US president Donald Trump assured Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains “very positive” about the ongoing indirect peace talks in Egypt.

Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on an Axios report that claimed Trump had urged Netanyahu to stop being negative, the U.S. leader said it was “not true”.

“He’s been very positive on the deal,” Trump said. “But this is a deal that, incredibly, everyone just came together. They all came together. No, Israel’s been great. They’ve all been good, Kaitlan.”

Hamas issued a statement on the second anniversary of the deadly October 7 attacks.

It described the time since as “two years of pain, injustice, oppression and great suffering, of heavy costs”.

Hamas criticised Israel’s attacks on “defenceless civilians”, lamenting “shameful international silence and complicity and unprecedented Arab failure”.

The first round of ceasefire talks between Israeli and Hamas officials has concluded in Egypt, Palestinian official has said.

The official told the BBC that the negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian delegations in resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh lasted for four hours. Qatari and Egyptian mediators were in attendance, the source said.

Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will arrive imminently to join the talks along with Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and a former senior advisor in his last administration.

The Independent’s chief correspondent Bel Trew has been speaking to Palestinian officials:

Palestinian deputy foreign minister Omar Awadallah told The Independent that there were “positive signals” coming out of the indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Sharm El-Sheikh over a deal for Gaza.

He said that we were “the closest to an agreement since January”, when the last temporary truce was reached and came into effect.

Representatives from Hamas, Israel, as well as Egypt, Qatar, and the United States are currently in Sharm El-Sheikh working on the implementation of Trump’s 20-point peace plan. So far, negotiators have been fairly tight-lipped about what exactly has been discussed.

Mr Awadallah said that top of the agenda right now was the “first part” of the plan: the release of hostages and prisoners, the entry of aid “at scale”, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt to the fighting, the end to the slaughter.

For these initial stages, he said “the atmosphere is optimistic” that an agreement could be reached soon, as Trump has put pressure on a deal this week.

The issue, however, is the timeframes and a “solid action plan”.

“For [the] withdrawal of Israeli forces, we want the time frame to be quick, so that our people can be relieved and we can start the process of recovery and reconstruction. Without Israel’s withdrawal, it will be difficult,” he told The Independent from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

“But the deal needs action plans, time lines and time tables.”

One of the key concerns from the Palestinian side is Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “playing tricks.”

“He is a master in changing agreed upon ideas, and in sabotaging any peaceful solution in the Middle East.

“The concern is without time line of withdrawal, this turns into a de facto occupation of Gaza, and also isolating Gaza, taking Gaza out of the geographical and political unity that is essential to political peace process.”

“Gaza is integral to the state of Palestine, there is no ‘people in Gaza’, no ‘Ramallah’s people’, no ‘West Bank people’, it is called the question of Palestine,” he added.