The Latest: Israeli and Hamas officials discuss US peace plan for Gaza
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Audio By Carbonatix
2:10 AM on Monday, October 6
By The Associated Press
Israeli and Hamas officials are holding indirect talks in an Egyptian coastal resort on Monday on a U.S.-drafted peace plan to end the war in Gaza on the eve of its second anniversary.
The talks focus on the ceasefire's first stage, including the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces as well as the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention, according to a Hamas statement.
U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are also expected to join the talks, Egypt’s state-run media outlet Al-Ahram reported.
Many uncertainties remain about some elements of the plan including the disarmament of Hamas and the future governance of Gaza. Israel is still pounding Gaza with deadly airstrikes despite Trump’s order to stop. Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll in the war reached 67,160 on Monday.
Here's the latest:
One of the crew members of a Dutch cargo ship that was attacked last week by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Gulf of Aden has died of his injuries, the ship’s owner said Monday.
“Earlier today, our colleague passed away in hospital from the critical injuries sustained during the attack on our vessel in the Gulf of Aden on 29 September,” the shipping company Spliethoff said in a written statement.
The Amsterdam-based company did not release details of the crewman’s injuries.
The Sept. 29 attack wounded two mariners on board the Minervagracht, whose 19-member crew hailed from the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. They were forced to evacuate the ship after the strike inflicted substantial damage.
The company said that most of the crew of the Minervagracht have returned home, but one is still being cared for in Djibouti. His condition is described as stable “and we expect he will be able to return home later this week.”
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched missile and drone attacks on over 100 ships and against Israel in response to the war in Gaza, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss “the current developments in the Middle East, including in the context of the U.S. president’s plan for normalization in the Gaza Strip,” the Kremlin said.
T two leaders spoke about other regional issues, including the situation around the Iranian nuclear program and stabilization in Syria, the Kremlin statement said.
Putin has previously hailed Trump’s plan for Gaza and voiced hope that it will be successfully implemented. At the same time, the Russian leader has reaffirmed Moscow’s support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state as a pivotal component of the Middle East peace settlement.
United Nations officials are in touch with mediators trying to end the war in Gaza and “there are intense discussions taking place,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“We very much hope for a positive outcome of those discussions,” he said.
The ceasefire plan calls for a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza, whose more than 2 million Palestinian residents are facing hunger and in some areas famine.
“We’ve been ready and the machinery is cranked up and ready to go as soon as we get the green light,” Dujarric said. “There are many thousands of metric tons in the pipeline of goods ready to enter” from Jordan, the Israeli port of Ashdod and elsewhere.
U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea issued the appeal at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday, stressing that President Donald Trump’s plan has been accepted by Israel, welcomed by the Palestinian Authority, and has broad support from a number of Arab and Muslim-majority countries from Turkey to Indonesia.
The plan’s acceptance, she said, “will allow Gaza to begin a peaceful and prosperous future, while ensuring Hamas no longer threatens Israel.”
“We urge Hamas to accept the deal on the table, and we call on all member states to give the plan their full support and demand that Hamas immediately accept it,” Shea told the council.
She expressed shock at Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Noura Erakat disparaging the peace deal in an earlier briefing to the council, and calling Israel’s war against Hamas “a genocide” against Palestinians.
Erakat urged the Security Council to insist that a solution to the war in Gaza doesn’t come at the expense of accountability, and that the U.N. – not Israel and its allies – oversee the end of Israeli occupation.
Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News television station reported that the talks began with a meeting between Arab mediators and the Hamas delegation.
Mediators will then meet with the Israeli delegation, the station, which is close to Egyptian security agencies, said.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators will discuss the outcome of their meetings with both parties, before U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff joins the talks, it said.
The Vatican has marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by condemning the “inhuman massacre” of innocent people in Israel and calling for the return of hostages. But it also said Israel’s razing of Gaza is itself a disproportionate massacre, and called on countries to stop supplying Israel weapons to wage the war.
Vatican Media interviewed Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, on the eve of the anniversary. The Vatican No. 2 sought to strike a balance between condemning the original attacks and Israel’s response.
“Those who are attacked have a right to defend themselves, but even legitimate defense must respect the principle of proportionality,” Parolin said. “The perverse chain of hatred can only generate a spiral that leads nowhere good.”
While calling for the return of hostages taken by Hamas, Parolin said Israel must respect principles of international law.
“It seems evident that the war waged by the Israeli army to eliminate Hamas militants disregards the fact that it is targeting a largely defenseless population, already pushed to the brink, in an area where buildings and homes are reduced to rubble,” he said.
He lamented that countries that can influence Israel have failed to stop the “ongoing massacre.”
He said the Holy See welcomed and supported Trump's peace plan.
An Egyptian official said talks involving Israeli and Hamas officials were underway at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh Monday afternoon. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.
The Israelis are headed by top negotiator Ron Dermer while Khalil al-Hayyah leads the Hamas delegation.
— By Sam Magdy in Cairo
Israeli authorities said Monday that they have deported to Greece and Slovakia another 171 people detained for taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, including prominent Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X that “the deportees were citizens of Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, and the United States.” The post included photos of Thunberg and other activists wearing white T-shirts and gray sweatpants.
Israeli authorities again rejected accusations of mistreatment that have emerged in interviews with activists who were deported to Turkey, Spain and Italy over the weekend.
Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza urged the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump for what they say are his unprecedented contributions to world peace.
In a letter to the committee released Monday, family members said Trump’s determination to achieve peace “made possible what many said was impossible.”
They said Trump deserves the prize because of his vow not to rest until every last hostage returns home and because no other leader or organization "has contributed more to peace around the world” in the last year.
The letter states that thanks to Trump’s peace plan that’s being negotiated, “for the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over.”
Hundreds of women in Istanbul formed a human chain to express solidarity with Palestinian women and children killed in the war in Gaza.
The demonstration — where participants held hands or stood shoulder to shoulder — was organized by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party. It came on the eve of the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. That assault, carried out by Hamas-led militants, triggered Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza, which has since claimed more than 67,100 lives.
Similar protests took place simultaneously in Ankara and other cities across Turkey. Many of the women waved Palestinian flags or wore the traditional kaffiyeh scarf.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said Monday the bodies of 19 people, including two aid-seekers killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire, have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours. Another 96 were wounded.
The deaths brought the toll to 67,160 since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war, with nearly 170,000 wounded, the ministry said.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi on Monday hailed Trump’s efforts to stop the war in Gaza.
“A ceasefire, the return of hostages and detainees, the reconstruction of Gaza, and the start of a peaceful political process leading to the establishment and recognition of a Palestinian state mean that we are on the right path toward lasting peace and solid stability,” he said.
He underscored the importance of preserving the U.S.-crafted “peace system” in the Middle East since the 1970s, which he said “served as a strategic framework for regional stability.”
El-Sisi made the remarks in a televised address commemorating the anniversary of the Oct. 6, 1973, war with Israel that led to Egypt reclaiming the Sinai Peninsula, where Sharm el-Sheikh is located.
Palestinians in Gaza hope that babies born on the day the Israel-Hamas war began will be able to celebrate their second birthday to the sound of laughter and cheers instead of the cacophony of bombs, missiles and bullets.
Rola Saqer said the two years since giving birth to her daughter Masa have been full of suffering and misery.
Saqer said she was scared for Maza, who is weak and malnourished. Saqer and her husband, Mohammed Zaqout, live in a sparsely furnished tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
It’s much the same for Amal al-Taweel and her husband, Mostafa, who had their son Ali after three years of trying for a child. Now living in a tent inside an alley, Amal said Ali is being deprived of proper sanitation, food, vaccinations and even toys.
