Hamas rejects Trump’s Gaza blueprint as more violence rocks West Bank

JERUSALEM — Palestinian attackers stabbed an Israeli to death and wounded three more in the West Bank on Tuesday before being gunned down by troops in the latest violence to rock the occupied territory, the Israeli military said.

The attack follows a spate of settler violence against Palestinians across the West Bank. Officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have warned that such unrest could spill over and undermine the fragile truce in Gaza.

It came a day after the United Nations Security Council gave its backing to President Trump’s blueprint to secure and govern Gaza. The militant group Hamas rejected the plan as other countries signaled excitement and readiness to help implement it.

Violence flares in the West Bank

The Israeli military said the stabbing took place at the Gush Etzion junction south of Jerusalem, a site of many past attacks by Palestinian militants.

Israel’s emergency rescue services said a 71-year-old man died of stab wounds at the scene. Three other people were hospitalized, including a woman in serious condition and a teenager in moderate condition. The military said Israeli troops then opened fire, killing two Palestinian attackers. The Palestinian Health Ministry later identified them as two 18-year-olds from the Hebron area.

Yaron Rosenthal, head of the regional council in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, demanded that Israel respond to the attack and provide more support for the area’s Israeli settlements.

“Terrorism is fueled by the hope of a state,” he said, connecting the violence to the Palestinian Authority and the reemerging push to advance efforts to secure Palestinian statehood.

Hamas did not claim responsibility for the attack, but in a statement called it “a normal response to the occupation’s attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” vowing that Israeli aggression wouldn’t go unchallenged.

Elsewhere in the West Bank on Tuesday, news network Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, said Israeli forces shot cameraman Fadi Yassin in both legs while he was covering a protest in the city of Tulkarm. The military did not respond to a request for comment.

Tulkarm has been a tinderbox throughout the year, with Israeli forces frequently carrying out incursions around the Nur Shams refugee camp, which they say is home to many militants. Civilians say the area has endured repeated raids, sieges and home demolitions, prompting regular protests by Palestinians angry about operations pushing people from their homes.

An Associated Press journalist saw soldiers fire into the air to disperse protesters and then shoot toward Yassin as he moved toward the camp entrance to record. The journalist later saw Yassin on the ground, wounded and surrounded by Palestinians, including women and children, before he was carried by bystanders to an ambulance.

The violence came a day after Israeli settlers rampaged through the Palestinian village of Jaba, torching homes and cars, drawing a rare condemnation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli leaders.

Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and government officials said. It was the deadliest strike in Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

The drone strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 13 people were killed and several others wounded in the airstrike, without giving further details.

World reacts to U.N. vote

The United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority praised the U.N. vote on Trump’s postwar Gaza plan. Hamas rejected it, saying the proposed security force would only help Israel maintain its grip on the territory.

The resolution provides a wide mandate for an international force to provide security in war-devastated Gaza, approves a transitional authority called the Board of Peace to be overseen by Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu, who otherwise applauded the resolution, did not mention the pathway to statehood in remarks about the plans.

The plan calls for the stabilization force to ensure “the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.” It authorizes the force “to use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate” in compliance with international law, which is U.N. language for the use of military force.

Hamas said Monday that the force’s mandate, including disarmament, “strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.” It said the resolution did not “meet the level of our Palestinian people’s political and humanitarian demands and rights.” Hamas demanded that any international force be under U.N. supervision, deploy only at Gaza’s borders to monitor the ceasefire and operate exclusively with Palestinian institutions.

The vote shores up hopes that Gaza’s fragile ceasefire will be maintained after a war set off by a Hamas-led surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people. Israel’s offensive since then has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally but says the majority were women and children.

European Union to discuss Gaza reconstruction aid

The European Union announced Tuesday that it will host a conference Thursday for a new Palestinian donors group to discuss financial aid for Gaza’s reconstruction, reforms of the Palestinian Authority and long-term peace in the Middle East. The EU has pledged in the past to help train police officers in Gaza and flood the war-torn coastal enclave with humanitarian aid.

European Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said delegations from 60 entities, including the EU’s 27 member states, some unnamed financial institutions, international organizations and other countries, would meet in Brussels. The meeting is to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.

Another commission spokesperson, Anouar El Anouni, said the U.N. Security Council resolution “provides the basis for moving into the next phase, including work related to the International Stabilization Force and the Board of Peace.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Tuesday that the international community needed to “work together to take forward the 20-point plan and to turn it into a just and lasting peace.” Cooper called for “urgent action to open all the crossings, lift restrictions and flood Gaza with aid.”

More on the U.S. proposal

Trump said the members of the Board of Peace will be named in the coming weeks, along with “many more exciting announcements.”

The plan calls for the stabilization troops to secure Gaza border areas, along with a Palestinian police force that they have trained and vetted. The force will coordinate with other countries to secure the flow of humanitarian assistance, and should closely consult and cooperate with neighboring Egypt and Israel.

As the international force establishes control, the resolution says, Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza “based on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization.” These must be agreed to by the stabilization force, Israeli forces, the U.S. and the guarantors of the ceasefire, it says.

Frankel writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Edith Lederer at the United Nations; Majdi Mohammed in Tulkarm; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Sam McNeil in Brussels; and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.