Hamas Likely to Reject Trump Gaza Plan

Israeli strikes and intensified ground assault around Gaza City killed dozens overnight, with hospitals reporting varying tallies and medics struggling to reach and treat the wounded. The violence coincides with Hamas weighing U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point proposal — accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — which conditions an end to fighting on Hamas returning about 48 hostages, disarming and relinquishing power and creating a technocratic transitional administration overseen by international actors; the plan contains no pathway to Palestinian statehood. The proposal promises rapid hostage-prisoner exchanges, expanded humanitarian aid and reconstruction if accepted, but Qatar, Egypt and other mediators and Palestinian factions say key elements need further negotiation and have signalled discontent with late changes. Many Gazans, exhausted after nearly two years of war that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 66,000 people and wounded hundreds of thousands, expressed a desperate desire for an end to the fighting even as many view the proposal as favoring Israel. Israel intercepted most vessels in a flotilla carrying symbolic aid, tightened its encirclement of Gaza and ordered civilians to move south under vetting procedures; Hamas is finalizing a formal response and senior officials indicate they may likely reject the framework.