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PM Netanyahu reportedly ‘shocked’ at Trump’s positive response to Hamas
Israeli media is reporting that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is surprised and shocked after some of these words by the US president, saying that Hamas’s response is essentially heading in a positive direction and also calling for Israel to stop the bombing of Gaza.
Netanyahu reportedly wanted to coordinate a response, a joint Israeli-American response, to what Hamas was saying – so that it wouldn’t actually be seen as positive.
It just goes to show where perhaps Netanyahu’s head is at.
He still has to meet with his government. He still has to discuss this deal within his coalition. It’s going to have to come to a vote, ultimately.
But the Israeli opposition leader is saying that Netanyahu will have a political safety net – meaning that the opposition parties could step in and form a sort of unity government if members of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition don’t want to be involved in this deal.
They [a unity government] would pass this deal, and then the country would go to elections.
We are also hearing from family members of Israeli captives who say they completely support what the US president is saying, including the stopping of bombardment inside of Gaza – because they fear it’s only going to harm and perhaps kill captives who are still being held there.
Within Israel, there is a lot of political turmoil to begin with, and in less than 24 hours, we are going to see protests on the streets of Israel calling for this deal.
Hope now Israel will allow flow of aid to enter Gaza and not restrict to ‘trickle’
The hope now, with this sudden change in the tone and the narrative; hopefully humanitarian aid will be allowed at an amount that is necessarily sufficient to address the deepening humanitarian crisis, and not similar to what happened during the [last] ceasefire.
In January, when the ceasefire was announced, the Israeli military only allowed a trickle of aid.
Many practical aspects of Trump’s plan still unclear
The practicalities of the implementation of Trump’s plan are still unclear.
We heard from the mediators that there are still discussions that must take place about the logistics and the implementation of the plan. Everybody understands that Trump’s plan was more of a road map than a detailed text on implementation.
How Hamas and other factions will be given freedom of movement to reach the captives and the bodies of the captives is a question. How and where the captives will be released is another question.
It is also unclear who will be freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for captives.
In Israel, families of the captives welcomed Hamas’s announcement while the government took its time to react.
The government circles were shocked by the announcement, and it took some time for Netanyahu to welcome the developments and to only talk about a first phase of the plan.
