Trump repeats pledge to take control of Gaza even as pressure mounts to renew ceasefire

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Trump repeats pledge to take control of Gaza even as pressure mounts to renew ceasefire

MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip (AP) — New details and growing shock over

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

renewed pressure Sunday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

beyond the first phase, even as U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his pledge that the U.S. would take control of the ************ enclave.

Talks on the second phase, meant to see more hostages released and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, were due to start Feb. 3. But Israel and ****** appear to have made little progress, even as Israeli forces withdrew Sunday from a Gaza corridor in the latest commitment to the truce.

Netanyahu sent a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator, but it included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough. Netanyahu, who returned after a U.S. visit to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, is expected to convene security Cabinet ministers on Tuesday.

Trusted news and daily delights, right in your inbox

See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.

Trump weighs in on Gaza again

Speaking on Sunday, Trump repeated his pledge to take control of the Gaza Strip.

“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that ****** doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One as he traveled to the Super Bowl.

Trump said Arab nations would agree to take in Palestinians after speaking with him and insisted Palestinians would leave Gaza if they had a choice.

“They don’t want to return to Gaza. If we could give them a home in a safer area — the only reason they’re talking about returning to Gaza is they don’t have an alternative. When they have an alternative, they don’t want to return to Gaza.”

Trump also suggested he was losing patience with the deal after seeing the emaciated hostages released this week.

“I watched the hostages come back today and they looked like Holocaust survivors. They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated. It looked like many years ago, the Holocaust survivors, and I don’t know how much longer we can take that,” he said.

Israel has expressed openness to the idea of resettling Gaza’s population — ”a revolutionary, creative vision,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday — while ******, the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and much of the world have rejected it.

Egypt said it will host an

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on Feb. 27 to discuss the “new and dangerous developments.”

Trump’s proposal has

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. It may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic to pressure ****** or an opening gambit in discussions aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia condemned Netanyahu’s recent comment that Palestinians could create their state there, saying it aimed to divert attention from crimes committed by “the Israeli occupation against our ************ brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.”

Qatar called Netanyahu’s comment “provocative” and a blatant violation of international law.

Hostage families say time is running out

Families of remaining hostages said time is running out as some survivors described being barefoot and in chains.

“We cannot let the hostages remain there. There is no other way. I am appealing to the cabinet,” said Ella Ben Ami, daughter of a hostage released Saturday, adding she now understands the toll of captivity is much worse than imagined.

The father of a remaining hostage, Kobi Ohel, told Israel’s Channel 13 the newly released men said his son, Alon, and others “live off half a pita to a full pita a day. These are not human conditions.” Ohel’s mother, Idit, sobbed as she told Channel 12 her son has been chained for over a year.

Michael Levy said his brother, the newly released Or Levy, had been barefoot and hungry for 16 months. “The decision-makers knew exactly what his condition was and what everyone else’s condition was, and they did not do enough to bring him back with the urgency that was needed,” he said.

On Saturday, as Israelis reeled, former defense minister Yoav Gallant said on social media that the deterioration in hostages’ conditions was something “Israel has known about for some time.”

The ceasefire’s extension is not guaranteed

The ceasefire that began on Jan. 19 has held, raising hopes that the 16-month war that led to seismic shifts in the Middle East may be headed toward an end.

The latest step was Israel forces’ withdrawal from the 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim corridor separating northern and southern Gaza, which was used

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. No troops were seen in the vicinity Sunday. As the ceasefire began last month, Israel began allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to cross Netzarim and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

But the deal remains fragile. On Sunday, civil defense first responders in Gaza said Israeli fire killed three people east of Gaza City. Israel’s military noted “several hits” after firing warning shots and warned Palestinians against approaching its forces.

Cars piled with belongings headed north. Under the deal, Israel should allow cars to cross Netzarim uninspected. Troops remain along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt.

****** spokesperson Abdel Latif Al-Qanoua said the troops’ withdrawal showed the militant group had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands” and thwarted “Netanyahu’s illusion of achieving total victory.”

Israel has said it won’t agree to a complete withdrawal from Gaza until ******’ military and political capabilities are eliminated. ****** says it won’t hand over the last hostages until Israel removes all troops.

During the ceasefire’s 42-day first phase, ****** is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 ************ prisoners and a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to Gaza.

Israel has said ****** confirmed that eight of the 33 are dead.

Families of the hostages gathered in Tel Aviv to urge Netanyahu to extend the ceasefire, but he is also under pressure from far-right political allies to resume the war. Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take control of the Gaza Strip may also complicate the situation.

“They are dying there, so we need to finish this deal in a hurry,” said Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of hostage Yoram Metzger, who died in captivity.

The war in Gaza, sparked by ******’ attack that killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not differentiate between fighters and noncombatants in their count. Much of the territory has been

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Violence in the occupied West Bank

Violence has surged in the occupied West Bank during the war and intensified in recent days with an Israeli military operation against ************ militants in the territory’s north.

On Sunday, the ************ Health Ministry said Israeli gunfire killed two women, one of them, Sundus Shalabi, eight months pregnant. It said Rahaf al-Ashqar, 21, was also killed. The shooting occurred in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp, a focal point of Israeli operations.

Israel’s military said its police had opened an investigation.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz on Sunday announced the expansion of the operation that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. He said it was meant to prevent Iran — allied with ****** — from establishing a foothold in the West Bank.

___

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Isabel DeBre in Ramallah, West Bank, and Darlene Superville, traveling aboard Air Force One, contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Trump #repeats #pledge #control #Gaza #pressure #mounts #renew #ceasefire

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/