Israeli troops kill at least 31 Palestinians in Gaza as Trump peace plan raises questions
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- Fighting in the Gaza Strip continues amid discussions over President Trump’s proposed peace plan for the enclave.
- Hamas said it will review Trump’s proposal with Palestinian factions, while Qatar indicated more negotiations are needed on details.
- Palestinians remain skeptical of the plan, which would disarm Hamas and place Gaza under international governance without guaranteeing statehood.
CAIRO — Israeli forces killed at least 31 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, local hospitals said, as questions churned about President Trump’s peace plan aimed at ending the nearly two-year war in Gaza.
Hamas announced it would review the proposal with group members and other Palestinian factions before reaching a decision.
But Qatar, a key mediator with Hamas, said further talks were needed to work out the details of the proposal. It was a sign further negotiations could be ahead, even as Trump told reporters Tuesday that Hamas has “three or four days” to respond.
Arab mediators, along with Turkish officials, were scheduled to meet with Hamas representatives Tuesday in the Qatari capital Doha to discuss the plan, said the spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, Majed Al Ansari.
While the proposal offers an end to the fighting, guarantees the flow of humanitarian aid and promises reconstruction, the Palestinian militant group will have to disarm, something it has rejected in the past. Also, Gaza and its more than 2 million Palestinians would be put under international governance for the foreseeable future.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs the plan, and several leaders of Arab countries have applauded it.
Trump on Monday laid out a 20-point plan for ending the Israel-Hamas war and establishing a postwar governance in the battered Palestinian territory.
Many Palestinians in the decimated coastal enclave are wary of the proposal. Notably, the plan sets no path to Palestinian statehood and brings a so-called “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to supervise the administration of Gaza.
To some, that smacked of the colonial British Mandate over Palestine from 1920 to 1948, when the British ran the area.
“They want to impose their own peace,” Umm Mohammed, a history teacher who sheltered with her family in Gaza City, told the Associated Press. “In fact, this is not a peace plan. It’s a surrender plan. It returns us to times of colonialism.”
Israelis bank on Trump despite doubt
With the peace proposal, families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas were torn between heightened hopes and a realism that past signs of progress have fallen apart. Hamas is thought to be holding 48 hostages, 20 of whom are believed by Israel to be alive — and under the plan, they would be freed within 72 hours of both sides’ accepting the deal.
“For two years now, I have been waiting for Elkana, my husband, in endless pain,” said Rivka Bohbot, wife of hostage Elkana Bohbot, in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“Now I demand that these impressive words be turned into even greater and more impressive actions — actions that bring the hostages home,” she said of Trump and Netanyahu’s announcement.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair spent eight years working to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians as the international community’s envoy to the Middle East.
While Arab countries back the plan, Arab officials told the Associated Press that the 20-point text released by the White House on Monday included changes to the draft that they had previously discussed with Trump, making the proposal more favorable to Israel.
They pointed to the vague terms about the withdrawal of Israel’s troops, the lack of a timeframe for allowing the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza and the lack of a clear pathway to a state. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes talks.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the issue of the Israeli troop withdrawal “requires clarification, and this must be discussed.”
More than 30 Palestinians killed
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops opened fire, killing 17 Palestinians and wounding 33 others while they were attempting to access humanitarian aid in central Gaza, according to nearby Al-Awda Hospital, where the casualties were taken.
Israeli strikes in central and southern Gaza killed 14 others, according to local hospitals.
Meanwhile, hospitals in southern Gaza are gearing up for a flood of displaced wounded and sick Palestinians, as tens of thousands are forced to flee Gaza City in the face of Israel’s stepped-up offensive there.
Over 450,000 people have been displaced from the north since mid-August, mostly from Gaza City, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands are believed to remain in the city, where a famine has been declared.
Magdy and Lidman write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Jerusalem. Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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