
{"id":1627,"date":"2025-07-08T20:56:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T20:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/us-envoy-steve-witkoff-suggests-gaza-ceasefire-deal-is-close\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T20:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T20:56:39","slug":"us-envoy-steve-witkoff-suggests-gaza-ceasefire-deal-is-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/us-envoy-steve-witkoff-suggests-gaza-ceasefire-deal-is-close\/","title":{"rendered":"US envoy Steve Witkoff suggests Gaza ceasefire deal is close"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>Trump aide says Washington \u2018hopeful\u2019 a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas can be reached by the end of the week.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>An aide to United President Donald Trump has suggested a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/liveblog\/2025\/7\/8\/live-israel-pounds-gaza-trump-netanyahu-hold-talks-on-ceasefire\">Gaza ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0is close, saying Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in proximity talks now, and we had four issues, and now we\u2019re down to one after two days of proximity talks,\u201d special US envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Witkoff said the deal would see the release of 10 Israeli captives and the bodies of nine. He added that the Trump administration thinks the deal \u201cwill lead to a lasting peace in Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/7\/8\/netanyahu-trump-discuss-forced-transfer-of-palestinians-out-of-gaza\">Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> told reporters in Washington, DC, that while Israel \u201cstill has to finish the job in Gaza\u201d, negotiators are \u201ccertainly working\u201d on a ceasefire.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and Netanyahu dined together on Monday at the White House during the Israeli leader\u2019s third US visit since the president began his second term on January 20.<\/p>\n<p>The two leaders are to meet again later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s coming over later. We\u2019re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We\u2019ve got to get that solved,\u201d the US president told reporters at a cabinet meeting in the White House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Qatar confirmed on Tuesday that Hamas and Israeli delegations are in Doha to discuss the ceasefire proposal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a positive engagement right now. The mediation teams \u2013 the Qataris and the Egyptians \u2013 are working around the clock to make sure that there is some consensus built on the framework towards the talks,\u201d Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s war on Gaza has killed more than 57,500 Palestinians, internally displaced nearly the entire population of the enclave and placed hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation.<\/p>\n<p>United Nations experts and rights group have described Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2024\/12\/5\/amnesty-international-accuses-israel-of-committing-genocide-in-gaza\">as a genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu suggested on Monday that the US and Israel are working to ensure the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza \u2013 an idea first proposed by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/2\/5\/trump-says-us-will-take-over-and-own-gaza-in-redevelopment-plan\">Trump in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli officials have been framing the push to remove all Palestinians from Gaza Gaza as an effort to encourage \u201cvoluntary migration\u201d from the territory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn\u2019t be a prison. It should be an open place and give people a free choice,\u201d Netanyahu told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Rights advocates said the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, which would amount to ethnic cleansing, cannot be considered voluntary.<\/p>\n<p>Prominent legal expert Ralph Wilde said that with the widespread destruction, siege and daily attacks in Gaza, the concept of free choice to stay there or leave \u201cis a lie\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s forced displacement because that isn\u2019t a choice that is made freely,\u201d Wilde told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump aide says Washington \u2018hopeful\u2019 a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas can be reached by the end of the week. An aide to United President Donald Trump has suggested a Gaza ceasefire\u00a0is close, saying Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week. \u201cWe\u2019re in proximity talks now, and we &#8230; <a title=\"US envoy Steve Witkoff suggests Gaza ceasefire deal is close\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/us-envoy-steve-witkoff-suggests-gaza-ceasefire-deal-is-close\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about US envoy Steve Witkoff suggests Gaza ceasefire deal is close\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}