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Gaza ceasefire plan for hostage release awaits Hamas response
© Reuters. Dahlia Cooper hangs a picture of her father-in-law Amiram Cooper, who was kidnapped on the deadly October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel,
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By Jonathan Landay, Maya Gebeily, Andrew Mills and Nidal al-Mughrabi
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT/DOHA (Reuters) – Hamas is studying a three-phase Gaza ceasefire plan that would secure the release of most Israeli hostages but does not yet commit Israel to end its war with the Palestinian militant group, according to sources with knowledge of the proposal.
The viability of the plan formulated by U.S., Israeli and Egyptian spy chiefs and Qatar’s prime minister hinges on whether or not Hamas, which rules the enclave, will agree to the first phase without agreeing to a permanent end to the war – thus far a core demand of the group.
“We don’t know and we cannot predict what Hamas’ response will be,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister, said on Monday.
Hamas told Reuters in a statement on Tuesday the proposal would involve three stages, including the release of hostages held by the group and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The statement corroborated some details of the framework provided to Reuters by two sources briefed on the proposal.
Men, children, the elderly and wounded would be released in the first stage, the statement said, and the plan had been sent to Gaza to obtain the opinion of Hamas leaders there. “After that, the Hamas leadership will meet to discuss the paper and express its final opinion on it,” the statement said.
More than 100 Israeli hostages are still held, following the release of a similar number in an earlier truce in November that involved the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners.
Versions of the phased ceasefire framework have been under discussion since late December, but Israel did not sign onto the concept until David Barnea, the Mossad chief, met his U.S. and Egyptian counterparts and Sheikh Mohammed in Paris on Sunday.
Egyptian sources said Qatar, Egypt and Jordan would guarantee that Hamas adheres to any agreement, while the U.S. and France would do the same on the Israeli side. Reuters was unable to establish what assurances the guarantors would be able to offer.
Israeli officials did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who says the group is open to all ideas that will lead to an end to Israel’s Gaza offensive, announced on Tuesday he would visit Cairo to discuss the plan.
WOMEN, CHILDREN, THE ELDERLY
Its first phase would consist of a pause in fighting and the release of elderly, civilian women and children hostages, said a source briefed on the Paris talks and a second source with in-depth knowledge of the talks and their results. Major deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza, facing a ruinous humanitarian crisis, would resume, according to both sources.
The sources differed on how long the first stage ceasefire would last, but two of them said it would be set for at least a month.
The second phase would see the releases of female Israeli soldiers, and another increase in aid deliveries and restoration of utility services to Gaza, and the third phase would see the release of the bodies of deceased Israeli troops in exchange for Palestinian prisoners freed, the two sources said.
The Hamas statement said the second phase would also involve the release of male military recruits.
“Military operations on both sides will stop during the three stages,” it said. The number of Palestinian prisoners to be released is to be left to the negotiation process “at every stage, with the Israeli side preparing to release those with high sentences,” the Hamas statement said.
Both sources said that although Israel has not committed to a permanent ceasefire, the ultimate aim of this phased approach is a fourth phase in which the war would end and Hamas would release male IDF soldiers held captive in exchange for Israel’s release of additional Palestinian prisoners held in jail.
“There is a consensus on the concept of the framework, but critical details of each phase still need to be worked out,” said an official briefed on the negotiations.
If Hamas does agree to the framework proposal it could still take days or weeks to settle logistical details of the ceasefire and the release of hostages and prisoners, the official said.
During the talks preceding the truce in November, the indirect chain of communication between Hamas leaders based in the group’s Gaza tunnels and Israeli officials broke several times because of power outages amid intense fighting, a source briefed on those talks said at that time.
The current behind-the-scenes discussions are proceeding in tandem with a public standoff in which both sides in the conflict appear to want to pressure the other by issuing statements ruling out various potential concessions.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not quit Gaza or free thousands of Palestinian prisoners, while Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it would not engage in any understandings on hostages without ensuring a comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
A far-right partner in Netanyahu’s coalition, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened on Tuesday to quit the government over any attempt to enter a “reckless” deal with Hamas on the hostages.
‘WHAT REALLY MATTERS’
It was not immediately clear whether such public positioning reflected developments in the backroom discussions.
The framework agreed in Paris is based on elements of an initial proposal made by Israel and a counterproposal made by Hamas, Sheikh Mohammed said at Washington’s Atlantic Council think tank on Monday.
“We tried to blend things together to come up with some sort of reasonable ground that brings everybody together,” he said.
The source with in-depth knowledge of the proposal said it could still be amended.
“The number of days or hostage calculations can change, but with this approach it allows for a sort of win-win shaped by what really matters to the two sides,” the source said.
Significant gaps remain, almost four months after Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and took 253 others hostage on Oct. 7 in a bloody rampage through southern Israel towns.
Israel has responded by bombarding the narrow, densely populated Gaza Strip, killing more than 26,000 Palestinians and turning the enclave into a wasteland of rubble.
The source with in-depth knowledge of the talks said the discussions in Paris were “productive,” but that the deal could only move forward if both Hamas and Israel received robust guarantees from its backers.
By leaving the issue of male hostages from the Israeli Defense Forces to the end, the source said, Hamas could be made to feel it retained some leverage over the Israeli military.
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Dutch police seize scores at pro-Palestinian rally after soccer unrest
By Anthony Deutsch and Charlotte Van Campenhout
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Dutch police took away more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday who defied a ban on demonstrations in Amsterdam following clashes this week involving Israeli soccer fans.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the capital’s Dam Square, chanting “Free Palestine” and “Amsterdam says no to genocide”, in reference to the Gaza war.
Israel denies allegations of genocide in its more than year-long offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
After a local court ratified the city council’s ban, police moved in, instructing protesters to leave and rounding up more than 100 of them, according to a Reuters journalist.
They were put on buses and dropped off on the outskirts of the city, police spokesperson Ramona van den Ochtend said, without confirming how many had been picked up.
One protester was taken to an ambulance bleeding.
The ban, which authorities extended for another four days until Thursday, has been in place since Friday after attacks on Israeli soccer supporters following a soccer match between visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.
At least five people were injured in assaults that Dutch authorities and foreign leaders including Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced as antisemitic.
DETENTIONS
Protest organisers said in a message on Instagram that they were outraged by the “framing” of unrest around the match as antisemitic and called the protest ban draconian.
“We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponized to suppress Palestinian resistance,” they said.
Four people remain detained on suspicion of violent acts, including two minors. Another 40 people have been fined for public disturbance and 10 for offences including vandalism.
As well as suffering attacks by what the mayor called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads”, visiting Israeli fans burned a Palestinian flag and used sticks, pipes and rocks in clashes with opponents, according to a video and police report.
Local police chief Olivier Dutilh told the court on Sunday that the protest ban was still needed as antisemitic incidents were continuing, including people being pushed out of taxis and told to show their passports on Saturday night.
The Netherlands has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents since the Gaza war began in October last year.
More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and millions displaced in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, according to health officials there, launched after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage in a cross-border attack, according to Israel.
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Bitcoin rises above $80,000 for first time
(Reuters) -Bitcoin was trading near record $80,000 on Sunday after hitting it earlier in the session, following Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the U.S. presidential election earlier in the week.
, the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is up 65.4% from the year’s low of $38,505 it hit on Jan. 23.
Trump has vowed to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet”.
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Factbox-Trump 2.0: Who is in the running for top jobs in Trump’s second administration?
By Gram Slattery
(Reuters) -Donald Trump has begun the process of choosing a cabinet and selecting other high-ranking administration officials following his presidential election victory.
Here are the early picks and top contenders for some of the key posts overseeing defense, intelligence, diplomacy, trade, immigration and economic policymaking. Some are in contention for a range of posts.
SUSIE WILES, chief of staff
Trump on Thursday announced that Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, will be his White House chief of staff.
While the specifics of her political views are somewhat unclear, Wiles is credited with running a successful and efficient campaign. Supporters hope she would instill a sense of order and discipline that was often lacking during Trump’s first term, when he cycled through a number of chiefs of staff.
SCOTT BESSENT, potential treasury secretary
Bessent, a key economic adviser to Trump, is widely seen as a top candidate for treasury secretary. A longtime hedge fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, Bessent has a warm relationship with the president-elect.
While Bessent has long favored the laissez-faire policies that were popular in the pre-Trump Republican Party, he has also spoken highly of Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tool. He has praised the president-elect’s economic philosophy, which rests on a skepticism of both regulations and international trade.
JOHN PAULSON, potential treasury secretary
Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager and major Trump donor, is another top contender for treasury secretary. The longtime financier has told associates he would be interested in the job.
A longtime proponent of tax cuts and deregulation, Paulson’s profile is broadly similar to that of other potential members of Trump’s economic team. He has publicly supported targeted tariffs as a tool to ensure U.S. national security and combat unfair trade practices abroad.
One high-profile fundraiser hosted by Paulson in April raked in over $50 million for the former president.
LARRY KUDLOW, potential treasury secretary
FOX Business Network personality Larry Kudlow, who served as director of the National Economic Council for much of Trump’s first term, has an outside shot at becoming his treasury secretary and would likely have an opportunity to take a separate economics-focused position if he is interested.
While he is privately skeptical of broad tariffs, there is publicly little daylight between the policies Kudlow advocates and those of the president-elect.
ROBERT LIGHTHIZER, potential treasury secretary
A loyalist who served as Trump’s U.S. trade representative for essentially the then-president’s entire term, Lighthizer will almost certainly be invited back. Though Bessent and Paulson likely have a better shot at becoming treasury secretary, Lighthizer has an outside chance, and he might be able to reprise his old role if he’s interested.
Like Trump, Lighthizer is a trade skeptic and a firm believer in tariffs. He was one of the leading figures in Trump’s trade war with China and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada during Trump’s first term.
HOWARD LUTNICK, potential treasury secretary
The co-chair of Trump’s transition effort and the longtime chief executive of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick is in the running for treasury secretary.
A bombastic New Yorker like Trump, Lutnick has uniformly praised the president-elect’s economic policies, including his use of tariffs.
He has at times given elaborate, unvarnished opinions about what policies will be enacted in Trump’s second term. Some Trump allies had privately complained that he too often presented himself as speaking on behalf of the campaign.
LINDA McMAHON, potential commerce secretary
Professional wrestling magnate and former Small Business Administration director Linda McMahon is seen as the frontrunner to lead Trump’s Department of Commerce, three sources briefed on the plans said.
McMahon is a major donor and was an early supporter of the Republican president-elect when he first ran for the White House almost a decade ago. This time, Trump tapped her to co-lead a transition team formed to help vet personnel and draft policy ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
McMahon is the co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE. She later served as director of the Small Business Administration, resigning in 2019, and went on to lead a pro-Trump political action committee that supported his 2020 reelection bid.
RICHARD GRENELL, potential secretary of state
Grenell is among Trump’s closest foreign policy advisers. During the president-elect’s first four-year term, he served as acting director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to Germany. When Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in September, Grenell sat in on the private meeting.
Grenell’s private dealings with foreign leaders and often-caustic personality have made him the center of multiple controversies, though significant Republican gains in the Senate mean he could likely be confirmed. He is also considered a top contender for national security adviser, which does not require Senate confirmation.
Among the policies he has advocated for is setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine to end the war there, a position Kyiv considers unacceptable.
ROBERT O’BRIEN, potential secretary of state
O’Brien, Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser during his first term, maintains a close relationship with Trump, and the two often speak on national security matters.
He is likely in the running for secretary of state or other top foreign policy and national security posts. He has maintained close contacts with foreign leaders since Trump left office, having met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in May.
His views are somewhat more hawkish than some of Trump’s advisers. He has, for instance, been more supportive of military aid for Ukraine than many of his Republican contemporaries, and he is a proponent of banning TikTok in the United States.
BILL HAGERTY, potential secretary of state
A U.S. senator from Tennessee who worked on Trump’s 2016 transition effort, Hagerty is considered a top contender for secretary of state. He has maintained solid relations with essentially all factions of the Republican Party, and could likely be confirmed with ease in the Senate.
He served as U.S. ambassador to Japan in the first Trump administration at a time when the president touted his warm relationship with then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Hagerty’s policies are broadly in line with those of Trump. Earlier in the year, he voted against a major military aid package for Ukraine.
MARCO RUBIO, potential secretary of state
Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, is also a top secretary of state contender whose policies hew closely to those of Trump. Like Hagerty, he was a contender to be Trump’s 2024 running mate.
Rubio has long been involved in foreign affairs in the Senate, particularly as it relates to Latin America, and he has solid relationships throughout the party.
MIKE WALTZ, potential defense secretary
A former Army Green Beret who is currently a U.S. congressman from Florida, Waltz has established himself as one of the foremost China hawks in the House of Representatives.
Among the various China-related bills he has co-sponsored are measures designed to lessen U.S. reliance on critical minerals mined in China.
Waltz is on speaking terms with Trump and is widely considered to be a serious contender for secretary of defense.
KEITH KELLOGG, potential candidate for national security adviser
A retired lieutenant general who served as chief of staff to the National Security Council under Trump, Kellogg (NYSE:) has Trump’s ear and is a contender for national security adviser, among other national security posts.
During the campaign, he presented Trump with a plan to end the war in Ukraine, which involved forcing both parties to the negotiating table and ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine for the foreseeable future, among other measures.
TOM HOMAN, potential homeland security secretary
Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a year and a half during Trump’s first term, is a contender for secretary of homeland security. Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration the central element of his campaign, promising mass deportations.
Trump frequently praised Homan during the campaign, and Homan often hit the trail to rally supporters. During Trump’s first term, Homan was a leading advocate of the administration’s controversial child separation policy, during which children of immigrants who had entered the country illegally were detained separately from their parents.
CHAD WOLF, potential homeland security secretary
Wolf, who served as Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security for roughly 14 months during his first presidency, may have a shot at heading back to DHS.
Wolf loyally carried out Trump’s hardline immigration policies, and he deployed federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to control protests during the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer.
He may have some strikes against him. He resigned on Jan. 11, 2021, just days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has expressed misgivings about bringing back those who resigned in the final days of his term. Wolf, however, cited the legal controversy around his appointment as DHS secretary – rather than the Capitol attack – when he stepped down. Multiple judges ruled that his appointment by Trump, which effectively circumvented the Senate, was illegal.
MARK GREEN, potential homeland security secretary
A former Army flight surgeon and the current chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Green is considered by some Trump allies in Washington as a contender for the top job at DHS. His supporters describe him as a Trump loyalist and immigration hardliner who also has significant legislative experience.
Green was nominated by Trump during his first term to serve as secretary of the Army, but he withdrew his name as past statements, which were widely seen as transphobic and Islamophobic, drew more scrutiny.
JOHN RATCLIFFE, potential attorney general
A former congressman and prosecutor who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s last year in office, Ratcliffe is seen as a potential attorney general, though he could also take a separate national security or intelligence position, such as CIA director.
The president-elect’s allies view Ratcliffe as a hardcore Trump loyalist who could likely win Senate confirmation. Still, during his time as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe often contradicted the assessments of career civil servants, drawing criticism from Democrats who said he politicized the role.
MIKE LEE, potential attorney general
A U.S. senator from Utah, Lee is widely seen as another top candidate for attorney general. Though the former prosecutor declined to vote for Trump during the 2016 election, he later became an unwavering ally, and he has become something of an intellectual hero among some factions of Trumpworld.
Lee was a key figure in attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, and has spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
KASH PATEL, potential candidate for national security posts
A former Republican House staffer who served in various high-ranking staff roles in the defense and intelligence communities during Trump’s first term, Patel frequently appeared on the campaign trail to rally support for the candidate.
Some Trump allies would like to see Patel, considered the ultimate Trump loyalist, appointed CIA director. Any position requiring Senate confirmation may be a challenge, however.
Patel has leaned into controversy throughout his career. In an interview with Trump ally Steve Bannon last year, he promised to “come after” politicians and journalists perceived to be enemies of the president-elect.
During Trump’s first term, Patel drew animosity from some more experienced national security officials, who saw him as volatile and too eager to please the then-president.
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