US President Donald Trump said on Friday that it would likely be known within 24 hours whether Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept a final proposal for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza. Trump also said he has spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, an agreement on the normalization of relations that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas during which both sides would work to end the war. “We’ll see what happens, we’ll know in the next 24 hours,” Trump said when asked if Hamas had agreed to the latest outline of a ceasefire deal. A source close to Hamas said on Thursday that the Islamist group has sought guarantees that a new US-backed ceasefire proposal will lead to an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, according to Gaza officials. The latest outbreak in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent military offensive. The war has also led to famine, with nearly half of Gaza’s population internally displaced.
Israel has been charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice and war crimes at the International Criminal Court. However, Israel has denied the allegations.