Hamas Agrees to Trump’s Plan

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said Friday that the Palestine resistance group had agreed to US President Donald Trump’s plan on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “in principle,” endorsing its main outlines, while stressing that implementation would require negotiations.

Abu Marzouk emphasized in an interview with Qatar’s Al Jazeera network that the group “would hand over its weapons to a future Palestinian state,” and the fate of Palestinians is a “national matter that Hamas alone cannot decide.”

“We agreed to the US plan in its main outlines, as a principle,” he said.

Abu Marzouk noted that the plan’s implementation “requires detailed negotiations through mediators.”

He pointed out that Hamas “will enter negotiations over all issues related to the movement and its weapons.”

“For example, all the details concerning the peacekeeping force require understandings and clarification.”

Abu Marzouk explained that Hamas “will hand over weapons to the coming Palestinian state, and whoever governs Gaza will hold the weapons.”

He said that “shaping the future of the Palestinian people is a national issue that Hamas alone cannot decide,” calling on Washington to “look positively at the future of the Palestinian people.”

Abu Marzouk noted that “there was a national agreement to hand over Gaza’s administration to independents whose reference is the Palestinian Authority.”

He affirmed that Hamas is “a national liberation movement, and that the definition of terrorism in the plan cannot be applied to it.”

Earlier, Hamas announced that it approved the release of all Israeli captives, the delivery of deceased bodies and the handover of Gaza’s administration to an independent Palestinian body in its response to Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza.​​​​​​​

The Palestinian group said in a statement on Telegram that “other issues raised in President Trump’s proposal concerning the future of the Gaza Strip and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people are tied to a unified national position based on relevant international laws and resolutions.”

A Palestinian source told Anadolu that Hamas delivered its response to Trump’s plan to mediators and requested clarifications on some clauses.

Hamas indicated that it had conducted “in-depth consultations within its leadership institutions and broad consultations with Palestinian forces and factions, as well as with mediators and friends, to reach a responsible position in dealing with US President Donald Trump’s plan.”

It affirmed its readiness to “immediately” enter, through mediators, into negotiations to discuss the details of the plan.

Israel estimates that 48 Israeli captives are in Gaza, including 20 alive, while around 11,100 Palestinians are held in its prisons, suffering from torture, starvation, and medical neglect, with many killed as a result, according to Palestinian and Israeli media and rights reports.

Earlier Friday, Trump gave Hamas until 6 pm Washington time (2200GMT) on Sunday to approve his plan regarding the Gaza Strip.

The White House issued a detailed plan on Sept. 29, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, followed by a comprehensive program for reconstruction and a reorganization of the enclave’s political and security situation.

The plan seeks to turn Gaza into a weapons-free zone, with a transitional governance mechanism overseen directly by Trump through a new international body tasked with monitoring implementation.

It includes the release of all Israeli captives held by Hamas within 72 hours of approval, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails according to Anadolu.

The plan stipulates halting hostilities, disarming the Palestinian resistance and Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza, to be governed by a technocratic authority under the supervision of an international body led by the US president.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years. It tightened the siege in March when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.

Since October 2023, Israeli bombardment has killed nearly 66,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The UN and rights groups have repeatedly warned that the enclave is being rendered uninhabitable, with starvation and disease spreading rapidly amid widespread displacement.

  • CrossFireArabia

    CrossFireArabia

    Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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    How Will Trump Get Out of This War?

    By Ismail Al Sharif

    “We are in an advanced position, and we will decide when the war will end,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister.

    President Donald Trump, in coordination with the Zionist entity, is igniting a regional war with Iran which is an unprecedented event in the region. Analysis of the true motives behind this fateful decision vary. One school of thought believes the strategic objective lies in controlling Iranian oil wealth and containing growing Chinese influence. Another links this to the Epstein affair, based on claims of Zionist pressure threatening to expose him to sensitive information.

    A third school believes that Trump is tied to political commitments made to Miriam Adelson, who generously funded his election campaign. Some go even further, alleging that Trump, known for his transactional negotiating style, received substantial financial compensation for engaging in this war. In a related context however, recent reports indicate that Trump himself has blamed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and several close advisors for instigating this latest military adventure.

    Whatever the true motives behind igniting this war, one path seems almost certain to end it: Trump will hold a press conference declaring a unilateral and absolute victory. The precise timing of this declaration remains uncertain.

    But the decision to cease hostilities does not rest with Trump alone; it is contingent upon the agreement of two other key parties: Tehran and Israel.

    Israel shows no desire to end this war, as it is the primary beneficiary of its continuation. It systematically seeks to dismantle the structure of the Islamic Republic and sees no harm in the regime’s collapse leading to widespread chaos engulfing Iran and the entire region.

    If Trump fails to restrain Netanyahu, the latter will not hesitate to continue his military operations even after any official American declaration of a ceasefire. This may explain why Trump declared that any settlement to end the conflict would only be possible with Netanyahu’s consent and explicit blessing.

    However, the Zionist entity might feign acceptance of a ceasefire while its Mossad intelligence apparatus works behind the scenes to fuel separatist and rebellious sentiments among ethnic minorities within Iran, such as the Kurds and Balouchis, potentially threatening the cohesion of the Iranian state from within. In response, Tehran would have no choice but to continue targeting the entity, which would then retaliate swiftly, potentially drawing Trump back into a cycle of military confrontation.

    Adding to Trump’s predicament is the possibility that he might ultimately declare a ceasefire unilaterally, without any fundamental change to the structure of the Iranian regime, and without extracting any genuine concessions from Tehran regarding halting uranium enrichment, dismantling its missile program, or severing its ties with regional allies—the very pretexts used to launch the war.

    Even more dangerous is the fact that the Islamic Republic’s resilience and its emergence from this crisis with its system intact will make it a unique and exceptional model: The first country to challenge American hegemony and emerge unscathed. This could encourage other countries suffering under the weight of Trump’s policies or ambitions—such as Venezuela and Greenland—to adopt resistance as a path, even if they lack Iran’s military capabilities.

    It seems to me that President Trump may be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, when he famously declared victory in 2003 from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which was then—as it is today—at the eye of the American military storm. It is worth recalling here that Bush’s speech was a highly symbolic and premature declaration, one that was quickly contradicted by events, as the war on Iraqi soil continued for nearly a decade afterward.

    The war has exhausted Iran and burdened it with immense hardships, making it seriously seek a cessation of hostilities. However, it simultaneously finds itself in direct confrontation with American will. Iranian officials have made it clear that any agreement to a ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations is contingent upon receiving firm guarantees from Washington and Tel Aviv that the aggression will not be repeated. Should Tehran manage to withstand and overcome this phase, it is likely to add to its list of demands one of which is the lifting of some of the sanctions imposed upon it.

    Therefore, it appears that the Iranian strategy is essentially based on a policy of systematic attrition; simultaneously exhausting the United States and Israel by driving oil prices to high levels and closing the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s vital energy artery. This would impose heavy economic burdens that might ultimately compel Washington to reconsider its calculations and agree to a ceasefire.

    In short, Trump will not be in a position to deliver a victory speech in the next week or two, and any such declaration without genuine cooperation from Israel and Iran will amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric devoid of any real substance on the ground. There is no doubt that President Trump has put himself, his country, and the entire region in a very complex strategic predicament, from which the way out may not be as easy as those who made the decision to go to war imagine.

    This analysis was originally written in Arabic and reprinted in crossfirearabia.com

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    Sirens Blast Six Times in Israel in One Day

    Sirens sounded across Israel six times on Friday, sending millions running for shelter, with emergency services reporting damage at several locations in the center of the country reports the Times of Israel.

    One impact, possibly by a cluster bomb sub-munition or other fragments, sparked a blaze on the roof of a building in Shoham. According to the Kan public broadcaster, dozens of people have been forced to leave their homes as a result of the damage, the daily paper added.

    CCTV footage appeared to show an impact at an empty school in Rishon Lezion, and several cars were also damaged in the town.

    “I finished running and saw the missile fall. It was a great miracle that my wife and three children were in the reinforced room,” witness Tomer Nativ told the Ynet news site. “It was scary, everything caught fire on the street.”

    A cluster munition also hit a highway in the center of the country, causing a crater, while an impact in Holon sparked a fire in a building, the English paper reported.

    An additional missile hit an open area in central Israel — no sirens sounded as that projectile did not pose a threat to a populated area.

    Cluster bomb warheads indiscriminately spread dozens of submunitions, each with several kilograms of explosives, over a radius of around 10 kilometers (6 miles).

    On the first day of the war, Iran launched some 90 missiles at Israel, before firing around 60 the following day. The rate then declined to around 20 missiles per day for around a week, before slowing further to several a day in recent days. Times of Israel

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