EIGHT Arab and Islamic countries have condemned Israel’s rejection of US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza.
In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Türkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia said the rejection threatened Trump’s intensified efforts to end war in Gaza.
Their condemnation came as Trump’s envoys met Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo yesterday, a diplomatic source said, in a bid to advance the US president’s Gaza peace plan, even as Israel pressed on with air strikes in the enclave.
Hamas officials were present at some of the meetings between mediators and with Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Nickolay Mladenov, Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, the diplomat said.
A senior Israeli official said Kushner and Mladenov were scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on August 9 said Trump’s latest roadmap for Gaza peace was ‘unacceptable’.
The official said that Israel was concerned about Washington’s demand to end targeted assassinations of Hamas fighters in Gaza as the group rebuilds its forces.
Trump’s peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza. It foresees Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw from the enclave and Gaza is rebuilt under a new civilian Palestinian administration.
After scaling back its attacks in the enclave earlier this month, Israel’s air strikes have resumed in the past few days.
The Israeli military said that its aircraft struck two Islamic Jihad and Hamas fighters in Khan Younis and Nuseirat.
At least five Palestinians were injured in the strike which hit a tent encampment, medics in the enclave said.
One of the injured in the strike on Khan Younis in southern Gaza died from their wounds, medics at Nasser Hospital said later.
A separate air strike, which the Israeli military said targeted another fighter, hit an apartment in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, wounding several people, medics said.
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