CrossFireArarbia

Hamas Agrees to Trump’s Plan

CrossFireArabia
October 4, 2025

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.

Opinion

Netanyahu and The Crippled Horse

CrossFireArabia
September 30, 2025

By Rashad Abu Dawood

Gideon’s chariots are sinking in the Gaza quagmire. Israel is increasingly isolated, becoming a pariah state in the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a slap in the face, or rather spat at, as the Israeli media described it, in his speech at the United Nations, where he spoke to walls as most of the delegations left when they saw him take the podium.

He lied and lied and tried to distort the facts of his crimes in Gaza, but the world no longer believes him.

Where is Netanyahu taking the region, the world, and even Israel itself to? His path has no end but death and destruction. This man no longer cares about international law, United Nations, or humanity. Nor, of course, does he care about the truth he tries to conceal with lies that no longer convince most Israelis or the countries and peoples of the world.

He reads from the Torah and impersonates Prophet Moses, Joshua bin Nun, and the kings of Israel, whose kingdoms once reigned but all perished. This was not because of the lack of character of their leaders or their lack of faith, but because their people disobeyed them and angered God. Didn’t they say to Moses: “Go, you and your Lord, and fight. Here we are sitting!”

Netanyahu misrepresents biblical terms. “Blotting out the memory of Amalek” refers to the Canaanite inhabitants of Palestine, and is a call for the Israeli army to act in Gaza exactly as Joshua did in Jericho: Genocide in the name of divine promise. “Iron swords” refer to the conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines during the time of David and Saul, when the Hebrews were forbidden from manufacturing iron weapons as a symbol of sovereignty.

As for the term “Gideon’s Chariots,” which the Netanyahu government has acknowledged as a failure – first its first phase and now second – remains a goal however to wipe out Gaza City including its people and structure. Gideon is the biblical judge who led his people during a moment of moral decline and widespread idolatry, when his enemies, Midian and Amalek, joined forces to destroy the crops. Despite the apprehension, Gideon continued his work in secret, believing in salvation from the Amalekites, and ultimately their kingdom was destroyed and wiped out.

After using most of the biblical terms to cover up his recklessness, failure, and corruption before the Israelis, Netanyahu began searching in history for something to distract them from their reality. He found the experience of “Sparta,” demanding they rely on themselves, manufacture weapons, and isolate themselves from the international community as a solution to the isolation he and his ally US president Donald Trump admitted Israel was experiencing.

As Israeli writer Ben Caspit put it in his Maariv article: “This man has completely lost his inhibitions, his balance, and his connection to reality. That he continues to command our Titanic is a danger to lives. Israel must not become Sparta or North Korea. This is not fate. Israel could have been a leading, beloved, accepted, and renowned country, a beacon of technology, intelligence, leadership, and economics in the Middle East as well, had it not been led by the unruly group of savages that this man brought upon us. How do I know all this? From the fact that we were, not long ago.

But one problem: Sparta has became extinct, lost, and disappeared. It no longer exists today (a small village bearing that name was rebuilt in modern times). What survived was Athens, the same Athens that Netanyahu is trying with all his might to destroy.

By the way, it was the Nazis who embraced Sparta, its culture, and its myths, orally, in writing, and in practice. And here, too, we know how things ended.

Netanyahu is the child who killed his parents, and then later asked for a reduced sentence because he was an orphan!

This column by Rashad Abu Dawood was originally written in Arabic for Addustour newspaper

News

Houthis Strike Israel With ‘Palestine 2’ Missile

CrossFireArabia
September 29, 2025

The Yemeni Armed Forces announced the “carrying out of a qualitative military operation targeting several sensitive locations in the occupied Yafa area, using a hypersonic ballistic missile, Palestine 2, with multiple warheads.”

The Yemeni forces said in a statement, Monday, “the operation successfully achieved its objectives and caused millions of herds of usurping Zionists to flee to shelters.”

It added: “We carried out a qualitative military operation with two drones that targeted two vital targets of the Israeli enemy in the Umm al-Rashrash area in southern occupied Palestine. The operation successfully achieved its objectives, thanks be to God.”

It emphasized that “the only option for our Arab and Islamic nation in the face of this enemy, which is attacking Arab and Islamic countries and committing massacres and genocide against our brothers in Gaza, is to confront, stand firm, and provide all necessary support to the oppressed Palestinian people and their honorable and noble resistance.”

It continued: “We will continue to fulfill our religious, moral, and humanitarian duties until the aggression against Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”

The Houthis in Yemen assert that they are bombing the occupying state of Israel “in support of the Palestinians in Gaza,” and will continue bombing as long as Tel Aviv continues its war of genocide with American support according to Jo24.

Since October 7, 2023, the occupying forces, with direct support from the United States and Western countries, have continued to wage a devastating war in Gaza, which has so far resulted in the martyrdom and injury of approximately 234,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.

News

Israel Shells One More Hospital in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
September 29, 2025

The Israeli army targeted another hospital in the Gaza Strip, disrupting medical services, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

“The Israeli army shelled Al-Helou Hospital in Gaza City with two missiles, making the entry to or exit from the hospital impossible,” the director of the Health Ministry Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, told Anadolu on Sunday.

“Doctors and patients inside the hospital are living in a state of terror and severe fear, which has been worsened by the occupation’s deliberate cutoff of the hospital’s internet network to isolate it from the outside world and suspend medical services for civilians,” Thawabta said.

The official stressed that such actions by Israel constitute “crimes against humanity,” and a “full-fledged war crime was added to the (Israeli) occupation’s black record.”

At least 38 Gaza hospitals were destroyed or rendered out of service, 96 healthcare centers were targeted, and 197 ambulances were destroyed or damaged by the Israeli army since the start of its genocidal war in October 2023, according to Health Ministry data.

“The (Israeli) occupation also carried out 788 direct attacks on healthcare facilities, staff, and supply chains, and killed 1,670 medical workers while carrying out their humanitarian duty,” the director added.

He pointed out: “These documented figures are not just statistics, but clear evidence of the occupation’s policy of targeting the Palestinian people’s lives, health, and dignity.”

“These crimes will not be forgotten over time,” the official said, as he held Israel and the US fully responsible.

He called on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities to stop this ongoing crime and protect civilians and the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army has killed over 66,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.

Analyses

Can Trump Impose His Plan on Gaza?

CrossFireArabia
September 29, 2025

By Dr Amer Al Sabaileh

Leaks continue to emerge from Washington about the vision of the US administration and President Trump for the next phase in Gaza. From the so-called “Riviera” plan floated months ago, the discussion has now shifted to a proposal for a new governing structure: an “International Transitional Authority” that would oversee Gaza for no less than five years. If granted a UN mandate, this body would become the supreme political and legal authority in the Strip.

This is not the first time such ideas have surfaced. Throughout the past year, many debates revolved around possible frameworks for Gaza, including new local councils or administrative bodies—always with a firm insistence on excluding the Palestinian Authority’s return. But the latest leak appears more realistic than turning Gaza into a real estate project. It now points to a future shaped by new Palestinian technocrats, operating under international oversight, with figures close to Arab decision-making circles such as former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair being floated as possible players. The plan also shows more detail and coherence than previous notions, echoing elements from earlier UN initiatives, especially the principle of rejecting forced displacement or mass expulsion of Palestinians—something Netanyahu has openly opposed.

It is only natural that such ideas are presented not just as trial balloons but as potential answers to an intractable dilemma. The notion of internationalizing Gaza was laid out earlier, following the failure to stop the war and the inability to craft a viable local compromise. Any solution today is being imported from outside, yet still built on immovable foundations: stripping Gaza of weapons and removing Hamas from the Strip. This means we remain far from implementation. Demanding the release of all hostages, the disarmament of Hamas, and its full withdrawal reduces the problem to its simplest form, while in reality, the crisis is still at its peak, not at the stage of post-war arrangements.

The Arab role, increasingly visible in recent months, could prove decisive in shaping any solution. Gulf states, in particular, have stepped up their influence over the Trump administration’s regional outlook. This was evident in their opposition to annexation plans for the West Bank, which Trump raised in talks with Arab leaders. Israel, however, has already taken steps on the ground and shows no sign of reversing them. US pressure, therefore, is focused less on halting annexation altogether and more on blocking its formal declaration. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar even clarified that the debate is not about annexing Palestinian-owned land, but about applying Israeli law to settlements in Area C, signalling a plan to consolidate control without directly clashing with Trump.

Against this backdrop, Netanyahu used his speech at the UN to stress that the war is far from over. While showcasing Israel’s achievements against Iran and its allies, he reaffirmed his concept of the “seven fronts war,” insisting the threat is ongoing and escalation remains possible. This message was clearly aimed at Trump, but Netanyahu also sought to tap into Trump’s interest in a peace legacy, hinting at possible peace with Syria and Lebanon. Still, he tied this to guarantees for minority rights—particularly for the Druze—framing concessions within security needs while keeping escalation elsewhere on the table.

All of this suggests that the region, from now until the coming anniversary of October 7, will remain open to potential flare-ups. Israel’s government, under pressure to deliver even symbolic victories, will continue to play both cards of potential peace and the threat of ongoing confrontation as the second anniversary of the October 7 attack approaches.

The author is a columnist for the Jordan Times