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.
Israel and Its Collaborators in Gaza
- CrossFireArabia
- September 27, 2025
By Ali Saadeh
The structure of the Hebrew state is based on mercenaries, collaborators, and agents. As revealed in Gaza, Israel is no more than a gang of murderers and a terrorist organization in the guise of a “state.”
Therefore, it is of no surprise it currently sponsors gangs of drug dealers, murderers, and thugs, and has created mercenary groups and armed Palestinian militias to operate in parallel with the Israeli military forces and under the supervision of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet).
The Israeli government is today arming Palestinian militias in Gaza, under the direct direction and orders of Benjamin Netanyahu to confront Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups.
Tel Aviv acknowledges the existence of at least three groups it is supplying with weapons and are funding them in Gaza and pursue Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters without revealing direct Israeli military involvement.
These militias do not receive regular Israeli weapons but supplied with weapons confiscated by the army from the resistance factions in Gaza and weapons seized from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This makes their combat gear appear more like “spoils of war” than Israeli military equipment.
In addition, their members receive monthly salaries and permits to carry weapons from the Israeli army, making them more like local mercenaries serving the occupation’s goals under Palestinian cover.
One of these militias, led by Yasser Abu Shabab and stationed in the eastern areas of Rafah, is the most prominent example of this formation and enjoys direct protection from the Israeli army. Other formations include young men from the clans and activists opposed to Hamas, many of whom belong to the Fatah movement.
According to Israeli sources, the tasks of these groups include gathering intelligence, monitoring areas emptied of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, and participating in maintaining security in areas crowded with displaced civilians in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Haaretz.
While the Israeli army and the Shin Bet promote the idea that these militias would constitute a “local alternative” to Hamas in the medium term, indicators on the ground show otherwise. Hamas and the resistance factions continue to dominate the scene throughout the Gaza Strip.
These groups train openly under the noses of Israeli forces inside the Strip and move freely near invading units, in small formations of between five and 10 armed men.
To avoid confusion, the Israeli army began in recent weeks to code the locations of these militia members in its command and control system, just as it designates the locations of its own forces, and making them part of its field military plan.
According to army commanders, these militias are participating in “large-scale and important operations within sensitive areas.” However, they also warn of the risk of losing control over them, with some saying: “Tomorrow they might commit a massacre. Who will bear the responsibility then?”
Haaretz military correspondent Yaniv Kubitsch pointed out that arming mercenary militias to carry out dirty operations or massacres is not new, recalling what happened in Lebanon during the 1980s, when pro-occupation militias committed the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 after the Israeli army besieged the camp.
According to Kubitsch, the army and the Shin Bet direct these militias to carry out missions, often in densely-populated areas in the southern Gaza Strip, where residents displaced from northern and central Gaza are concentrated.
Israeli media cites lessons from previous experiences in the region, from the South Lebanon Army to attempts to establish local entities in the West Bank, the experiences of the Sahwa (awakening) in Iraq, and the role of militias in Afghanistan and Syria.
He says,: “All of these are examples that demonstrate that local militias can turn against their back or spawn conflicting forces that weaken the state’s authority.”
Recently, Hussam al-Astal, former member of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, emerged and announced the formation of such an armed group in the Qizan al-Najjar area, southeast of Khan Yunis, which has been completely evacuated.
Astal called on residents to move to areas under his control and provide them with food, water, and shelter. He told The Times of Israel that his group would welcome anyone hostile to Hamas and that he had enough food, water, and shelter for everyone.
He noted that in the coming days, he would work to welcome about 400 Palestinians after verifying their security IDs. He said he was responsible for the area, as was Yasser Abu Shabab, who was responsible for areas east of Rafah and parts of eastern Khan Yunis. He confirmed he was in contact with Abu Shabab but was operating independently.
Astal is no stranger to collaborating; he worked for several years in Israel and later with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces when they still controlled Gaza.
He spoke of coordination between his group and the occupation, noting he received support from several sources, including the United States, Europe, and unspecified Arab countries.
Al-Astal was detained by the Hamas government’s security services after they succeeded in luring him from outside the Gaza Strip to the territory, indirectly through one of his brothers, an officer in the Hamas government’s internal security service. He was investigated on charges of collaborating with the occupation at the time, regarding his involvement in the assassination of engineer Fadi al-Batsh in Malaysia in 2018.
In 2022, the Permanent Military Court in Gaza issued a death sentence against al-Astal after convicting him of killing al-Batsh.
After the outbreak of the war, al-Astal managed to escape from prison and attempted to flee towards Israel. However, after the emergence of Yasser Abu Shabab’s group in Rafah, he joined it and fought with it, before establishing his new group alongside other militants, most of whom were accused of collaborating with Israel and thus held in Gaza prisons.
However, the collaborator remains, in the eyes of his employer, a mere dirty tool he manipulates according to his own interests. When his usefulness expires, the enemy throws him in the trash can and leaves him to his inevitable fate, which is being recorded on the streets by the Palestinian people. This punishment has become imminent after the recent scenes of the resistance executing a group of collaborators.
This feature was written recently by Ali Saadeh in Arabic and published in Assabeel.
Britain’s Palestine Recognition is Too Little Too Late
- CrossFireArabia
- September 24, 2025
By Avi Shlaim
In a historic shift, Britain has officially recognised the state of Palestine, a century after the Balfour Declaration set the course for its dispossession.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer first announced in July that the UK would take this step at the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting in September unless Israel met certain conditions, including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza, lifting the ban on humanitarian aid, and reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted furiously to the announcement, saying the decision rewarded “Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”. His Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, threatened “a unilateral decision”, like formally annexing the occupied West Bank, if British and European recognition of Palestine were to go ahead.
At this historical juncture, Britain’s recognition of Palestine as a state is pathetically little, and a century too late.
In 1917, Britain, in the infamous Balfour Declaration, pledged its support for the establishment of a “national home” – that is, a state – for the Jewish people in Palestine.
At the time, the Jews made up just 10 percent of the population of Palestine, and they owned only two percent of the land. Yet, in British eyes, the 10 percent merited the right to self-determination, whereas the 90 percent did not.
To add insult to injury, the Balfour Declaration referred to the Palestinian majority as “the non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, thereby negating their existence by defining them in terms of what they were not.
As Edward Said pointed out, it was a classic colonial document. From 1922 until 1948, Britain ruled Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate, said to be a “sacred trust of civilisation”, to prepare the country for self-government as per their duty under the Mandate.
Instead, Britain betrayed this trust by preparing the country to be taken over by European Jews.
Jewish refugees land at Haifa, Palestine, May 19, 1946; a reminder of the early waves of Jewish immigration that Britain’s policies facilitated while sidelining the Palestinian majority (AP/File).
The history of the British Mandate in Palestine is essentially the story of how Britain stole Palestine from the Palestinians and handed it over to the Zionists.
The cornerstone of the Mandate was to prevent elections until the Jews became the majority.
Britain enabled the tiny Jewish population to embark on the systematic takeover of the whole country, a process that continues to this day. It also thwarted the peaceful coexistence of Jews, Muslims, and Christians that prevailed in Palestine before the imposition of British colonial rule.
Britain abused the Mandate to sponsor and promote Zionist settler-colonialism on the one hand while suppressing Palestinian nationalism on the other.
In this sense, the current Israeli incursion into Gaza is a direct consequence of the Balfour Declaration, which mandated unbridled Zionist takeover of the whole land of Palestine.
This is why Britain’s decision to recognise Palestine today, while carrying historical weight, rings hollow unless it is matched by meaningful action to undo the damage of a century of complicity.
From hollow gestures to present-day complicity
Since 1948, under both Conservative and Labour governments, British policy has been marked by conspicuous support for Israel and total indifference to Palestinian rights, most notably the natural right of the majority to national self-determination.
In 2014, the House of Commons passed a motion for recognising Palestine as a state, supported by 274 MPs with 12 voting against. The vote was a clear reflection of the views and sentiments of Britain as a whole.
Then-prime minister David Cameron, however, dismissed the result as just a symbolic and non-binding gesture that would not affect in any way the foreign policy of his government.
In 2017, on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, 13,500 people signed a petition calling on the British government to issue an apology for the Balfour Declaration.
Then-premier Theresa May replied that the government had nothing to apologise for; on the contrary, it was proud of the vital role that Britain had played in creating a state for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland. There was no mention of the Palestinians or of their right to their homeland.
After 1967, a deep contradiction marked British policy on Israel/Palestine. Britain ostensibly supported a two-state solution to the conflict, that is to say, an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, consisting of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, with a capital city in East Jerusalem.
But while advocating a two-state solution, Britain recognised only one state – Israel –ignoring Israel’s consistent rejection of a Palestinian state.
The prospect of a hazy two-state solution remains a convenient but hypocritical cloak for failing to act against creeping Israeli annexation of the occupied territories.
The prospect of a hazy two-state solution remains a convenient but hypocritical cloak for failing to act against creeping Israeli annexation of the occupied territories.
Avi Shlaim
The debate about recognising Palestine was reignited by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas cross-border blitz of October 7, 2023.
Since that day, the Israeli military have rained death and destruction on the tiny enclave: killing over 64,000 people (mostly women and children); bombing 89 percent of the houses and civilian infrastructure; seriously damaging the healthcare facilities; targeting schools and universities and UN facilities; forcibly displacing 90 percent of the civilian population, in some cases upward of ten times; and using starvation as a weapon of war.
In the course of waging this savage war – ‘Operation A Thousand Swords’, to give it its official name – Israel is also committing the crime of all crimes: genocide.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza is the darkest chapter in the history of the twenty-first century. Despite the horrors that are unfolding daily in front of our eyes, British policy continues to lean strongly in favour of Israel, providing the offender with diplomatic, logistical, intelligence, and military support.
Britain abused its position as a permanent member of the Security Council by vetoing resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Royal Air Force continues to fly surveillance missions over Gaza and to supply the Israeli forces with valuable intelligence.
The RAF base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, is placed at the service of the Israeli military. Israeli transport planes can stop in RAF bases in Scotland on their way to pick up arms and ammunition from the US.
These same bases are used as a logistics hub for US special forces flights to and from Israel. Yet, British complicity in Israeli war crimes does not stop there.
Even more disturbing is the fact that Britain is Israel’s third biggest arms supplier, after the US and Germany. In September 2024, the UK suspended some licences for arms sales to Israel, but these amounted to less than 10 percent of the total.
So this move amounted to little more than a token gesture to placate the angry public.
Britain’s most egregious moral failure in relation to the war in Gaza lies in shirking its responsibility under the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
“Genocide” is defined in the convention as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. Most Israeli experts in Holocaust studies, notably Omer Bartov, believe that what Israel is doing in Gaza is a classic case of genocide.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the charge of genocide is plausible and ordered Israel to take a series of steps to prevent genocidal rhetoric and actions.
And just last week, a UN investigation confirmed what was known all along: that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine.
Israel defiantly ignored these orders. The British government maintains that there is no conclusive evidence that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza, so it is business as usual.
But under the convention, signatories do not have the luxury of waiting until genocide has taken place before bemoaning it. They have a duty to act to prevent genocide; in Gaza, the British government has singularly and lamentably failed.
Recognition without action
It is against this horrifying backdrop that the British government has decided to recognise the state of Palestine. This recognition is long overdue, but it is still welcome.
It means that four out of the five permanent members of the Security Council now support Palestinian statehood − the other three being Russia, China, and France. The odd one out is the United States, Israel’s closest and most powerful ally.
Although British recognition by itself will change nothing on the ground, it represents a strong political statement, and it removes the contradiction in advocating a two-state solution while recognising only one.
What it will not do is to stop the carnage and destruction, the humanitarian disaster, the genocide in Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank. Diplomatic recognition is, in fact, being used by British policy-makers as a cloak for inaction.
What Britain should do is sanction Israel, suspend all military and intelligence cooperation, and end all arms sales to Israel, as well as the purchase of military hardware and technology from Israel.
RelatedTRT World – British MPs push Starmer to expel Israeli envoy, impose arms ban over Gaza war
Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza is the most burning issue facing Britain and the rest of the international community today. Failure to act only contributes to Israel’s impunity. It also undermines the rule-based international order, which was put in place after World War II to prevent another Holocaust.
Britain’s half-hearted recognition of Palestine as a state, whilst aiding and abetting the monstrous Israeli war machine, brings to mind the apocryphal tale of Emperor Nero, who played his lyre while the Great Fire of Rome (AD 64) ravaged the city.
Will the British Government continue to play its fiddle whilst Gaza is razed to the ground, or will it finally listen to the masses whom it claims to represent, and acknowledge its own legal and moral obligation to act?
