20 point plan on Gaza peace deal released amid Israeli attacks

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European Union chief Antonio Costa on Monday urged all parties to "seize this moment to give peace a genuine chance" after US President Donald Trump announced his plan to end the war in Gaza.

"I welcome President (Trump's) plan to end the war in Gaza and I am encouraged by Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu's positive response," Costa said on X.

"The situation in Gaza is intolerable. Hostilities must end, and all hostages must be released immediately," he added.

Key Muslim nations on Monday lent their weight to backing a plan by US President Donald Trump to end the war in Gaza, even as some Palestinians decried the proposal as a "farce".

Washington's European allies urged Hamas to accept the plan, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported as he warned the Palestinian armed group of more devastation if it did not comply.

Eight Arab or Muslim-majority nations in a joint statement said they "welcome the role of the American president and his sincere efforts aimed at ending the war in Gaza."

They said they "affirm their readiness to engage positively and constructively with the United States and the parties toward finalising the agreement and ensuring its implementation."

The countries include Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey - which all recognise Israel, although some have turbulent relationships.

Also signing the statement were Qatar, which has played a key mediatory role, and Saudi Arabia, whose future normalisation with Israel is a key goal for Trump and Netanyahu.

Indonesia and Pakistan, the world's two most populous Muslim-majority countries, also joined the statement.

The Palestinian Authority on Monday welcomed US President Donald Trump's "sincere and determined efforts," following his announcement of a plan to end the war in Gaza.

It said in a statement that it "welcomes the sincere and determined efforts of President Donald J Trump to end the war on Gaza, and affirms its confidence in his ability to find a path toward peace".

Tony Blair on Monday hailed as "bold and intelligent" a move US President Donald Trump's plan for ending the war in Gaza, in which the British former prime minister is due to play a key role.

"President Trump has put down a bold and intelligent plan which, if agreed, can end the war, bring immediate relief to Gaza, the chance of a brighter and better future for its people, whilst ensuring Israel's absolute and enduring security and the release of all hostages," Blair said in a statement.

Under the plan, Blair is due to be part of a transitional "Board of Peace" in Gaza that will be chaired by Trump.

Residents of war-torn Gaza expressed skepticism over the latest peace plan unveiled Monday by US President Donald Trump, dismissing it as a farce that fails to end the war.

"It's clear that this plan is unrealistic", 39-year-old Ibrahim Joudeh told AFP from his shelter in the so-called humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi in south Gaza.

"It's drafted with conditions that the US and Israel know Hamas will never accept. For us, that means the war and the suffering will continue", said the computer programmer, originally from the southern city of Rafah, devastated by a military offensive that began in May.

Abu Mazen Nassar, 52, was equally pessimistic, and feared that the plan aimed to trick Palestinian factions into releasing hostages held in Gaza and no peace in return.

"This is all manipulation. What does it mean to hand over all the prisoners without official guarantees to end the war?", Nassar, displaced from his home in north Gaza in central Gaza's Deir el-Balah.

"We as a people will not accept this farce," he said, adding that "whatever Hamas decides now about the deal, it's too late."

"Hamas has lost us and drowned us in the flood it created."

Some, like Anas Sorour, a 31-year-old street vendor from the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis also displaced to Al-Mawasi, dared to hope.

"Despite everything we've lived through and lost in this war... I still have hope", Sorour told AFP.

"No war lasts forever. This time I am very optimistic, and God willing it will be a moment of joy that makes us forget our pain and our anguish", he added.

But others like 29-year-old homemaker Najwa Muslim, can no longer imagine anything changing.

"I haven't only lost faith in the deal; I've lost faith in life", Muslim told AFP from central Gaza, where she sought refuge after being displaced from Gaza City, currently under a massive Israeli military offensive.

"If there was a real intention to stop the war, they wouldn't have waited this long. That's why I don't believe any of their words."

After almost two years of war and countless attempts at ceasefire deals for Gaza, every new announcement is met with suspicion, even when Trump publicly presented a deal Monday alongside a cautious Netanyahu in an unprecedented move.

Mohammed al-Beltaji, a 47-year-old from Gaza City summarised his view of negotiations to AFP.

"As always, Israel agrees then Hamas refuses - or the other way around. It's all a game, and we, the people, are the ones paying the price."

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday hailed Donald Trump for his "commitment" to ending the war in Gaza after the US leader presented a key peace plan.

Macron said in a post on X the Palestinian militant group Hamas now had "no choice but to immediately free all the hostages" seized during the 2023 attacks that sparked the war and called on Israel, whose prime minister said he backed the plan, to "commit resolutely" to it.

The Qatari prime minister and the Egyptian intelligence chief shared U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza plan with Palestinian militant group Hamas, an official briefed on the talks told Reuters on Monday.

Hamas negotiators told mediators they will review the plan "in good faith" and provide response, the official said.

Israeli opposition lawmaker Benny Gantz on Monday said in a post on X that US President Donald Trump's proposal to end the nearly two-year war in Gaza was an opportunity to free the hostages held there and safeguard Israel's security.

Gantz, who joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government after the Hamas attack in October 2023 but later left, leads the Blue and White Party, which holds eight of the 120 seats in the Knesset.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party has 24 seats, also wrote on X backing the Trump proposal

Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi reiterated on Monday that the group has not yet received US President Donald Trump's written Gaza peace plan.

He gave the remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher TV shortly after Trump's joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the Israeli minister expressed support for the US plan.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he believes Iran could join the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement signed during Trump's first term in office under which Israel normalised diplomatic relations with four Muslim-majority nations.

"Who knows, maybe even Iran can get in there," Trump said at a White House press conference beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I think they're going to be open to it. I really believe that. But they could be a member."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state during a press conference at the White House. He also called for extensive reforms of the Palestinian Authority.

US President Donald Trump has called on Hamas to "accept the extremely fair proposal" that he laid out in his 20-point Gaza peace plan during a conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Gaza mediator Qatar said on Monday said it was ready to press for a truce in the Palestinian territory following an Israeli apology for its unprecedented strike on Doha earlier this month.

Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani had voiced "Qatar's readiness to continue engaging in efforts to end the war in Gaza within the framework of the US President's initiative," during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, the Gulf state's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Trump has said that an end to Israel's war on Gaza will see an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.

The White House press conference with US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister has begun, with Trump setting out the two discussed issues ranging from an end to Israel's war on Gaza, Iran, and an expansion of the Abraham Accords.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed regret for an Israeli attack in Doha to Qatar's leader on Monday in a three-way call with UxS President Donald Trump, the White House said.

The White House said Netayanhu also expressed regret for Israel violating Qatari sovereignty and "affirmed that Israel will not conduct such an attack again in the future."

Five Israeli soldiers were wounded in combat in northern Gaza, according to Haaretz, citing the Israeli military.

The five, which includes two officers and three soldiers, were from the Armoured Corps.

The chief of the UN's agency for Palestine refugee's (UNRWA) has accused Israel of causing "the physical destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza through creating unlivable conditions of life" in the enclave by stopping the agency from distributing aid into the enclave.

In a post on X, Philippe Lazzarini said that UNRWA has enough food to provide for Gaza for the next three months, and urged UN member states to demand a ceasefire and facilitate UN aid into the enclave.

"We have an unparalleled aid distribution network that can reverse famine [and] provide critical assistance to people in need."

Israel’s constraints on @UNRWA have caused the physical destruction of the Palestinians in #Gaza through creating unlivable conditions of life according to the U.N. commission of inquiry.

UNRWA has food & other supplies banned and on stand by since last March. They are enough…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) September 29, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologised to his Qatari counterpart for Israel's attack in Doha during a telephone call from the White House on Monday, a source close to Netanyahu told Reuters.

The call to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani came as Netanyahu met with US President Donald Trump in Washington. A Qatari technical team is also at the White House, according to a separate source briefed on the talks.

At least 361 Palestinian medical personnel have been detained in Israeli prisons, Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that its medics have been "forcibly disappeared in detention centres, and the occupation prevents human rights organisations from monitoring their conditions".

President Donald Trump said Monday he was "very confident" of a Gaza deal as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House for talks on a US-led peace plan.

"I am, I'm very confident," Trump told reporters when asked if he was confident there would be peace in Gaza. He repeated "very confident" when asked if all parties were on board with his 21-point plan.

Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed two people on Monday, the latest such raids despite a November ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and with the group under pressure to disarm.

Lebanon's health ministry said that "an Israeli enemy strike on an excavator in the town of Sohmor" in the eastern Bekaa Valley region killed one person.

A separate "Israeli enemy strike on a water tanker in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa", in south Lebanon, also killed one person, the ministry said, adding that another was wounded in a strike in south Lebanon's Aitaroun.

The UN children's charity called on Monday for an immediate evacuation to save at least 25 ill or premature babies in incubators in Gaza City as Israel steps up its ground offensive, shelling a hospital overnight, housing around half of them.

Palestinian health officials say tanks are surrounding the area near Al Helo Hospital, where at least 12 babies are in incubators. Medics said the site was shelled. Video obtained by Reuters showed hospital rooms and beds there strewn with debris.

"It is time to move them because Gaza City again has become a combat zone, but moving them where? There is no safe place for them to go," UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires told Reuters.

Evacuation of the babies, many of them newborns, will mean moving them to makeshift carts, wrapped in blankets with portable oxygen supplies and drips, Pires said. Still, they could be exposed to infection, variable temperatures or supplies could run out during the transfer.

"Moving them seems like the best option we have now...but at the same time, it's a very risky one."

Turkey has joined Spain, Italy and Greece in monitoring an international flotilla carrying aid for Gaza that was sailing east across the Mediterranean Sea on Monday despite warnings from Israel to stop the mission, flight data show.

Flight tracking websites showed that three long-endurance drones originating from Turkey's Corlu airbase have been circling over the flotilla for three days, highlighting the growing international interest in the boats, which have vowed to breach an Israeli naval blockade around the embattled Gaza Strip.

Reuters was unable to confirm the reason for the drone flights. Turkey's foreign and defence ministries, as well as the intelligence agency, did not respond to requests for comment.

The UAE is pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept President Donald Trump's Gaza peace proposal at their meeting later on Monday and to abandon any plan to annex the West Bank, a delegate with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The UAE's position on Trump's Gaza peace plan was communicated to Netanyahu by its Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, in a meeting with the Israeli leader on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, the delegate said.

The contents of Sheikh Abdullah's remarks to Netanyahu at the meeting have not been previously reported.

In Jerusalem, there was no immediate response from Netanyahu's office to a request for comment.

The Bank of Israel left short-term interest rates unchanged on Monday after inflation eased further in August, remaining cautious amid economic uncertainty due to the two-year old war on Gaza

The central bank left its benchmark rate at 4.50 percent for the 14th meeting in a row.

Its last move was to reduce the rate by 25 basis points in January 2024 after inflation eased and economic growth slowed in the early days of the Gaza war. It has kept policy steady since then and said it is in no rush to ease again while inflation remains at the upper bound its target.

Israel and Hamas are "very close" to reaching an agreement on a framework deal to end the war on Gaza and ensure lasting peace in the Middle East, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.

Leavitt, speaking on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program, said President Donald Trump would discuss a 21-point peace plan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House later on Monday. Trump will speak to leaders in Qatar, who have served as intermediaries with Hamas, on Monday, she said.

"To reach a reasonable deal for both sides, both sides have to give up a little bit and might leave the table a little bit unhappy, but that is ultimately how we are going to end this conflict," she said.

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have now killed atleast 33 Palestinians since Monday, including 24 in Gaza City as Israel intensifies its offensive to take over the region.

Turkey helped evacuate activists aboard the Gaza-bound Sumud aid flotilla after one of the vessels broke down and began taking on water, organisers and Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported Monday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, which includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg among its participants, departed from Barcelona earlier this month aiming to break Israel's blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.

In a statement posted on Instagram, the flotilla organisers said the mission was temporarily halted after one of the ships, Johnny M, sustained a leak in its engine room.

"All participants have been safely transferred to another vessel. Some will be reassigned to other ships, while others will be brought ashore," the statement said.

According to Anadolu, the vessel was located in international waters between Crete, Cyprus and Egypt when it issued a distress call early Monday.

Turkish authorities, including the Turkish Red Crescent, coordinated the evacuation effort.

Yemen's Houthis have said they launched a hypersonic ballistic missile and two drones into Israel.

The group said it fired a "Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile with multiple warheads" at Tel Aviv in a statement, saying it was "in response to the crimes of genocide and the dangerous escalation carried out by the Israeli enemy against our people in the Gaza Strip".

The Israeli military said the missile was intercepted.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed over 66,055 Palestinians since October 2023, wounding a further 168,346, the enclave's health ministry has revealed.

Over the past 24 hours, fifty people were killed and 184 were injured and taken to the hospital, including five Palestinians who were killed while seeking aid.

Israeli forces installed an iron gate east of Atouf village, east of Tubas, on Monday, Wafa reports.

Abdullah Bisharat, head of the Atouf village council, said the Israeli army had dug a trench in the area years ago, which restricted Palestinian movement, while parts of the same area had been closed off with earth mounds over the past two years.

The Israeli army has installed 247 iron gates since October 2023, with an additional 83 installed since the start of 2025.

Israel's far-right finance minister on Monday insisted the military maintain "full operational freedom" in Gaza, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's White House meeting with US President Donald Trump.

In a lengthy post on X, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich outlined a series of "red lines", saying Israel's security relied on "actions, our hold on the land, and uncompromising enforcement that depends solely on the (Israeli military) and our defence establishment".

He demanded the military "remain permanently at the perimeter, including the Philadelphi Corridor (and) will maintain full operational freedom throughout the entire Gaza Strip".

Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip have been continuing all throughout the day.

An Israeli attack injured four displaced people in the Gaza Strip, including two children, while a drone attack in southwestern Gaza City injured several more.

At the same time, an Israeli drone attack killed one in central Gaza's Bureij refugee camp.

Israeli forces detained 17 Palestinians from the Kafr Laqif village after raiding and searching several homes in the villages east of Qalqilya Governorate, on Monday, Wafa reports.

Local sources told the publication the Israeli army roamed its streets and raided and searched several homes.

The Israeli army has continued to detain Palestinians during its early-morning raids in the occupied West Bank.

Families of Israeli captives urged Donald Trump to uphold his proposed deal to end the war on Gaza ahead of the US president's meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We respectfully ask you to stand firm against any attempts to sabotage the deal you have brought forth," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the leading organisation representing relatives of the captives held in Gaza, wrote in an open letter to Trump.

"The stakes are too high and our families have waited too long for any interference to derail this progress."

Their appeal followed Trump's remarks that a breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations was imminent, citing a 21-point plan he gave to Arab and Muslim leaders on the margins of the UN General Assembly last week.

The US and Israel are very close to an agreement on President Donald Trump's plan to end the war on Gaza after talks between special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said in a post on social media website X on Sunday, citing a senior US official.

The official added that Hamas still needs to agree, Ravid said in the post.

Iran said Monday it executed a man it described as one of Israel's top spies after he was convicted of working for its arch-enemy.

"One of the leading spies of the Zionist regime in Iran, Bahman Choubi Asl, was hanged this morning," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

"The main goal of Mossad in attracting the defendant's cooperation was to obtain the database of governmental institutions and create a breach in Iranian data centres, along with which it also pursued other secondary goals, including investigating the route of importing electronic equipment," Mizan said.

US President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday for high-stakes talks aimed at pushing an elusive Gaza peace plan over the line.

Trump says a deal to end the nearly two-year war in Gaza, free captives held by Hamas and disarm the Palestinian group is effectively done following talks with Arab leaders last week.

He teased a possible breakthrough on Sunday, saying on his Truth Social network: "ALL ARE ON BOARD FOR SOMETHING SPECIAL, FIRST TIME EVER. WE WILL GET IT DONE!!!"