Day 729 of the Israel-Hamas war
US President Donald Trump published a map of the phases of Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza, which would begin immediately with the implementation of the Gaza peace plan — once fully accepted by Hamas. The map is a zoomed-in version of the one included in Trump’s initial release of the proposal, which Israel has already agreed to.
This comes as Israel halts its offensive operations in the Gaza Strip to allow room for further negotiations and implementation of the plan, following Trump’s announcement on Friday. The president told Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza” after the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas said they would agree to some of the terms in his plan to end the Gaza war, including releasing hostages, while making no mention of the topic of disarmament.
Israel is preparing for the “immediate implementation of the first phase of the Trump Plan, stipulating the immediate release of all hostages. We will continue to work in full cooperation with the President and his team to end the war in accordance with the principles set out by Israel, which align with President Trump’s vision,” the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed that talks on the hostage deal and ending the war will begin on Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh. “As part of Egypt’s ongoing efforts in coordination with mediators to end the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, Egypt will host two delegations from Israel and Hamas on October 6 to discuss the terms and details for exchanging all Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners in accordance with President Trump’s proposal.”
The Israeli delegation for the negotiations will consists of Minister Ron Dermer, Coordinator for the Hostages Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch, Political Advisor to the Prime Minister Dr. Ophir Falk, and professional representatives from the IDF, Shin Bet, and Mossad, the Israeli media says. This is in addition to the already-known US delegation led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
The Hamas negotiating delegation will leave Doha Sunday for Sharm El-Sheikh, and the Qatari delegation is set to arrive Monday. “Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Egypt later today [Saturday] to finalize the technical details of the hostage release and discuss the lasting peace deal,” a White House official also said.
According to the US plan, Gaza is to be patrolled by Egypt-trained Palestinian security forces after Israeli withdrawal, a Palestinian source close to Hamas told i24NEWS on Saturday. The new Egyptian and Jordanian trained Palestinian security forces will operate under a body of 15 Palestinian technocrats, to be overseen by the Tony Blair-led
Council. The source indicates that at some point the Palestinian administration of the Strip will be taken over by the Palestinian Authority. Read more.
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Israeli media publishes delegation for Gaza peace plan negotiations
The Israeli delegation for the negotiations will consists of Minister Ron Dermer, Coordinator for the Hostages Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch, Political Advisor to the Prime Minister Dr. Ophir Falk, and professional representatives from the IDF, Shin Bet, and Mossad, the Israeli media says.
This is in addition to the already-known US delegation led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
US President Trump posts an image of a hostage release protest to his Truth Social account amid negotiations over his 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan that would end the fighting in Gaza in phased stages and bring the immediate release of all remaining Israeli hostages.
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Talks over first phase of Trump’s plan to begin Monday – report
A diplomatic source told Al-Jazeera technical talks over implementing the first phase of Trump’s plan will begin in Sharm El-Sheikh on Monday.
The Hamas negotiating delegation will leave Doha Sunday for Sharm El-Sheikh, and the Qatari delegation will arrive on Monday, the report said.
