Hamas praises Trump but says Tony Blair not welcome in post-war Gaza role – live | Israel

In an interview with the Associated Press, the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that the expected hostage and prisoner release will be more challenging than previous ones given the scale and speed of the operation.

Christian Cardon, chief spokesman for the ICRC, said on Friday that while the group is expected to play a role as hostages are released from Gaza and Palestinian prisoners from Israel, it has not been given details in terms of when, how or where the releases would occur.

“Our colleagues are preparing themselves for all possible scenarios,” said Cardon.

He added that the terms of the deal, which call for the hostages to be released from Gaza within 72 hours, was an “extremely” tight time frame.

The ICRC was involved in prisoner and hostage releases in the two previous ceasefires during the war.

Donald Trump plans to convene world leaders for a summit on Gaza during his visit to Egypt next week, Axios is reporting, citing four sources with knowledge of the matter.

Among those expected to participate are representatives from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia. According to a US official, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be present.

The timing of the summit is unclear. According to Axios’s sources it will likely take place in Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday morning, but it could be moved to Monday.

Trump is expected to arrive in Israel on Monday morning local time, give a speech in the Knesset, and meet hostage families. In the afternoon, he will travel to Egypt to meet Egyptian president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and participate in a signing ceremony along with with the other guarantors of the Gaza peace deal: Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair would not be welcome in any post-war role for Gaza, a senior Hamas official said, while praising Donald Trump in securing a peace deal.

Speaking to Sky News, Dr Basem Naim said a ceasefire would not have been possible without Trump but said the US president must continue to apply pressure to Israel to ensure the agreement is not violated.

He said:

Without the personal interference of president Trump in this case, I don’t think that it would have happened to have reached the end of the war.

Therefore, yes, we thank president Trump and his personal efforts to interfere and to pressure Netanyahu to bring an end to this massacre and slaughtering.

He added that Hamas would be willing to step aside for a Palestinian body to govern a post-war Gaza, but that they would remain “on the ground”.

He commented:

We believe and we hope that president Trump will continue to interfere personally and to exercise the maximum pressure on Netanyahu to fulfil the obligation.

First, as according to the deal, and second, according to the international law as an occupying power, because I think without this, without this personal interference from President Trump, this will not happen.

We have already seen Netanyahu speaking to the media, threatening to go to war again if this doesn’t happen, if that doesn’t happen.

However, he criticised plans for Blair to play any role in the future of Gaza.

Naim added:

When it comes to Tony Blair, unfortunately, we Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe others around the world have bad memories of him.

We can still remember his role in killing, causing thousands or millions of deaths to innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can still remember him very well after destroying Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jason Burke

Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his pledge to force Hamas to disarm on Friday in a defiant and combative speech, just an hour after a ceasefire began in Gaza.

In a televised address, Israel’s prime minister said he had resisted intense domestic and international pressure to achieve his aim of ensuring “the security of Israel”, lambasted his critics and reiterated a threat to return to war if necessary.

“Hamas agreed to the deal only when it felt the sword resting on its neck and it is still on its neck … Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised … If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. And if not, it will be achieved the hard way.,” Netanyahu said.

The deal signed early on Thursday and implemented on Friday will lead to Hamas releasing 20 living hostages within 72 hours, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of Gaza, and freedom for about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Further steps are still unclear.

In his address, Netanyahu said that achieving security for Israel meant “breaking the Iranian axis, of which Hamas is a central component”, suggesting that he had achieved this over the 24 months of relentless conflict.

Analysts described the speech as “an election speech”.

Israel has released a list of the Palestinian detainees that it plans to release as part of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement made with Hamas.

According to Israeli media, of the 250 Palestinian prisoners, 15 will be released in East Jerusalem, 100 to the West Bank, and 135 will be deported.

The BBC reports that initially, when Hamas officials submitted a list of proposed prisoners to be released to mediators in Egypt, they called for the release of high-profile Palestinian political figures such as Marwan Barghouti.

The now 66-year-old Barghouti was jailed by an Israeli court in 2002 for his role in planning several killings during the second intifada. However, Netanyahu’s office confirmed it refuses to release Barghouti.

Barghouti, who is sometimes compared to Nelson Mandela by his supporters, is a senior figure in Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. He is seen as one of the few figures who could meaningfully reconcile rival Palestinian factions, and is hugely popular in both the West Bank and Gaza.

The IDF said today (10 October) that the ceasefire came into effect at midday. This means Hamas now has a 72-hour period to release all 48 remaining Israeli hostages from Gaza, of which 20 are still believed to be alive.

William Christou

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun to return home from southern Gaza after a ceasefire came into effect and Israeli troops withdrew to an agreed-upon redeployment line – the first time that fighting has stopped in the devastated territory since March.

The Israeli military said the ceasefire agreement, which was approved by the Israeli cabinet on Thursday night and begins the first phase of a US-drafted plan to end the war in Gaza, had been activated at noon local time (0900 GMT) on Friday.

Under the terms of the plan, Hamas is expected to release the 20 living Israeli hostages within 72 hours, after which Israel will release 250 Palestinians serving long terms in Israeli prisons, as well as 1,700 others detained in Gaza during the war.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed credit for the hostage release, saying in an address on Friday that the “security of Israel” was what dictated his actions in Gaza.

“I believed that if we applied heavy military pressure, combined with heavy diplomatic pressure, we would absolutely be able to return all of our hostages,” said Netanyahu, who also thanked the US president, Donald Trump, for his support to achieve the deal.

Avichay Adraee, an Israeli Arabic-language military spokesperson, said residents of Gaza could return north via specific routes, while warning them away from areas such as Beit Hanoun and the Rafah border crossing, where troops remained. Israeli bombing in Gaza had intensified on Friday morning up until the ceasefire began.