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Israel has agreed to a US ceasefire proposal for Gaza, the White House has said, and Hamas said it was reviewing the plan although its terms did not meet the group’s demands.
As a US-backed system for distributing food in the shattered territory expanded, Israeli media reported that its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had told the families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel had accepted a deal presented by US president Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Netanyahu’s office did not confirm the reports, but the White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters in Washington that Israel had signed off on the proposal.
She did not detail its contents. However, a draft seen by Reuters on Friday proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 28 Israeli hostages – alive and dead – in the first week and the release of 125 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life and the remains of 180 dead Palestinians.
The plan, which says it is guaranteed by Trump and mediators Egypt and Qatar, includes sending aid to Gaza as soon as Hamas signs off on the ceasefire agreement. The plan stipulates that Hamas will release the last 30 hostages once a permanent ceasefire is in place, and does not contain an Israeli promise to end the war.
The Palestinian militant group said it was studying the proposal, and the senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the group was still discussing it.
But Abu Zuhri said its terms echoed Israel’s position and did not contain commitments to end the war, withdraw Israeli troops or admit aid as Hamas has demanded.
Deep differences between Hamas and Israel have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire that broke down in March after only two months when Israel renewed its offensive.
Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely and be dismantled as a military and governing force and that all 58 hostages still held in Gaza must be returned before it will agree to end the war.
The Israeli government fears that a lasting ceasefire and withdrawal would leave Hamas with significant influence in Gaza, even if it surrenders formal power. With time, the Israelis fear, Hamas might be able to rebuild its military might and eventually launch more 7 October-style attacks.
On the other hand, Hamas fears the prospect that Israel could break the ceasefire – as it did last March – and resume the war, which the Israeli government would be permitted to do after 60 days under the terms of the deal.
The militant group has also rejected the demand to give up its weapons and says Israel must pull its troops out of Gaza and commit to ending the war.
While evaluating the deal, Hamas said the new proposal was more biased in favour of Israel than previous proposals, a source close to Hamas told Walla.
“The Zionist [Israeli] response, in essence, means perpetuating the occupation and continuing the killing and famine,” Bassem Naim, a top Hamas official, told the Associated Press. He said it “does not respond to any of our people’s demands, foremost among which is stopping the war and famine”.
Netanyahu also faces political constraints: his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war too soon. That would leave him more vulnerable to prosecution on longstanding corruption charges and to investigations into the failures surrounding the 7 October attack.
The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, which is considered illegal under international law, told Radio 103 on Thursday: “I stayed in the government to make sure that we return to fighting until the full goals of the war are realised, primarily the destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages. The second I realize that the state of Israel is not going to victory in the Gaza Strip and is going to give up and surrender to a terrorist organisation, I will not only leave the government, I will overthrow it in the fastest way possible. I have said this countless times.”
Another far-right minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said on Friday it was time to use “full force” in Gaza, after Hamas said a new US-backed truce proposal failed to meet its demands.
“Mr Prime Minister, after Hamas rejected the deal proposal again – there are no more excuses,” the national security minister said on his Telegram channel. “The confusion, the shuffling and the weakness must end. We have already missed too many opportunities. It is time to go in with full force, without blinking, to destroy, and kill Hamas to the last one.”
Hamas has not given a final response yet and said it wanted to study the proposal more closely before giving a formal answer, “with all national responsibility”.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private logistics group backed by the US and endorsed by Israel, expanded its aid distribution to a third site on Thursday.
Heavily criticised by the UN and other aid groups as inadequate and flawed, the group’s operation began this week in Gaza, where the UN has said 2 million people are at risk of famine after Israel’s 11-week blockade on aid entering the territory.
The aid launch was marred by tumultuous scenes on Tuesday when Israeli troops opened fire on a large crowd, killing at least one civilian and injuring dozens.
The chaotic start to the operation has raised international pressure on Israel to get more food in and halt the fighting in Gaza. GHF says it has so far supplied about 1.8m meals and plans to open more sites in the coming weeks.
Witkoff told reporters on Wednesday that Washington was close to “sending out a new term sheet” about a ceasefire to the two sides in the conflict that has raged since October 2023.
“I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution, temporary ceasefire and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution, of that conflict,” Witkoff said then.
Israel has come under increasing international pressure, with many European countries that have normally been reluctant to criticise it openly demanding an end to the war and a major relief effort.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the devastating Hamas attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say, and left the territory in ruins.
