WASHINGTON
\nU.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a \u201cfinal proposal\u201d for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.
\nThe president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
\nTrump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.
\nHe was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: \u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.\u201d
\nA source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.
\nTwo Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.
\nThe latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
\nGaza\u2019s health ministry says Israel\u2019s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza\u2019s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.
\nA previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the U.N. and Palestinians as a proposal of \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d
\nABRAHAM ACCORDS
\nTrump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about U.S. media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s one of the things we talked about,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,\u201d he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent U.S. and Israeli strikes.
\nAxios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran\u2019s General Staff of the Armed Forces.
\nTrump\u2019s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a \u201cfinal proposal\u201d for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza. The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n