Israel eases Gaza strikes as Trump hails Hamas hostage offer

Israel reined in its offensive in Gaza and prepared for talks with Hamas after U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the militant group’s offer to release all hostages as a breakthrough in his bid to end the two-year war.

Israel was preparing to “immediately implement the first phase of Trump’s plan for the immediate release of all hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday. Trump said in a social post Saturday that Israel “has temporarily stopped the bombing” in Gaza and warned Hamas that it “must move quickly, or else all bets will be off.”

Israel will start mediated negotiations with Hamas on Sunday, an Israeli official familiar with the matter said. That is after the Palestinian militant group said it wanted to discuss parts of Trump’s 20-point plan to end a conflict that has devastated Gaza and destabilized the wider Middle East. The official did not stipulate if the release of hostages was conditional on their outcome.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, were traveling to Egypt on Saturday to finalize the details of the peace negotiations, a White House official said, confirming an earlier report by Axios.

Details on what Trump’s plan would entail remain scarce. His latest comment shifts the onus back to Hamas after the group released its statement late Friday, prompting Trump to urge Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!”

“I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE,” Trump said in a social media post after Hamas responded to his administration’s plan announced on Monday.

Israeli assets have jumped on the prospect of peace in Gaza. The shekel was the best-performing currency last week among a basket of around 30 major units tracked by Bloomberg, rising 1.9% against the dollar to its strongest level since 2022.

There’s still plenty of uncertainty. Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire may prove tricky for Netanyahu politically, given that some of his far-right Cabinet members will be wary about further talks with Hamas. The group — designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and others — didn’t agree to some key stipulations in Trump’s plan, including that it disarm and have nothing to do with postwar governance in Gaza.

Iran-backed Hamas triggered war by attacking Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting another 250. Of those 48 remain in Gaza and Israel believes around 20 are still alive.

Hamas said the handover of hostages would be “contingent upon the necessary field conditions for carrying out the exchange.”

Israel’s army, which controls around 80% of the Gaza Strip, was assuming a defensive posture by Saturday, according to the Israeli official, who requested not to be identified by name discussing private matters.

Palestinian witnesses described the fighting as largely subdued. Still, shelling continued in Gaza City, the enclave’s de facto capital that’s the focus of a weekslong Israeli advance.

More than 66,000 Gazans have been killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory. The conflict has devastated Gaza and sparked a humanitarian crisis, with a United Nations-backed body declaring famine in part of the enclave. Israel has lost more than 450 soldiers in Gaza combat.

“We will enter into negotiations over all matters related” to the U.S. plan, senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk told Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV on Saturday, when asked if the group was ready to disarm and accept the exile of its leaders and fighters. “The movement has already said that on the day that a sovereign Palestinian state is created it won’t be an armed movement and it will hand over its weapons to this state.”

Israel has strenuously said it won’t allow for an independent Palestine, arguing it would pose a security threat to the Jewish state.

Abu Marzouk said much of Trump’s plan — mainly clauses about the future governance of Gaza — needed to be addressed with other Palestinian factions too.

“It may take months” to finalize everything, he said.

Trump said there were “details to be worked out,” suggesting he was willing to give Hamas some leeway. Netanyahu had previously insisted that Israel’s offensive would continue during any negotiations.

For Trump, a truce in the coming days and the freeing of the hostages could boost his campaign to win the Nobel Peace Prize, with the next winner being announced on Oct. 10. Bloomberg has reported that the president’s public and behind-closed-doors push to get the award has intensified in recent days.

In its response Friday, Hamas said parts of Trump’s plan “require a unified national stance and must be addressed based on relevant international laws and resolutions.”

There was also no mention of a proposal for a “Board of Peace” — headed by Trump and involving other world leaders, including former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair — to oversee and supervise a transitional, technocratic governance committee made up of Palestinians.

Arab nations had put strong pressure on Hamas to agree to Trump’s proposal. Egypt and Qatar both voiced approval of the Hamas statement, with Qatar, which has served as a mediator in previous rounds of talks, saying Trump’s push could lead to “rapid results that would put an end to the bloodshed of Palestinians.”

“Now the ball is back in Netanyahu’s court,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “They wanted the White House to treat this as take-it-or-leave-it. And this suggests that Trump is not ready to leave it.”

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(With assistance from Chris Miller, Fiona MacDonald, Shiyin Chen and Catherine Lucey.)