Israeli cabinet considers Gaza truce, Hamas ready to start talks ‘immediately’

Benjamin Netanyahu’s security council was expected to meet after the end of the Jewish Sabbath to discuss next steps with the Prime Minister due to leave for Washington for talks on Monday with US President Donald Trump.

A Palestinian man carries the shrouded body of a relative killed in an Israeli strike on Al-Baqa cafeteria on Gaza City seafront on June 30. Picture: AFP

Israel was still mulling its response on Saturday after Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a US-sponsored proposal for a Gaza ceasefire.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s security council was expected to meet after the end of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown, local time (about 3:30am Sunday AEST), to discuss Israel’s next steps with the Prime Minister due to leave for Washington for talks on Monday with US President Donald Trump.

“No decision has been made yet on that issue,” an Israeli government official told AFP when asked about Hamas’s “positive” response to the latest ceasefire proposal.

Hamas made its announcement late Friday after holding consultations with other Palestinian factions.

“The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place” the terms of the US-backed truce proposal, the militant group said in a statement.

A banner calling for action to release the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attacks. Picture: AFP

Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks, but demanded “guarantees” that Israel “will not resume its aggression” once hostages held in Gaza are freed.

Mr Trump, when asked about Hamas’s response aboard Air Force One, said: “That’s good. They haven’t briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.”

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants.

Two previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have seen temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

60-day truce proposal

Efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed.

A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told AFP earlier this week that the latest proposal included “a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip” — thought to number 22 — “in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees”.

Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.

A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, took the lead in food distributions in the territory in late May when Israel eased a more than two month blockade on aid deliveries.

The group said two of its US staff were wounded in an attack on one of its aid centres in southern Gaza on Saturday.

“This morning, two American aid workers were injured in a targeted terrorist attack during food distribution activities at SDS-3 in Khan Yunis,” the organisation said, adding that reports indicated it was carried out by “two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans”.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to co-operate with the GHF.