Aggression against Gaza represents a turning point in history of region: Arab League chief

CAIRO: Hamas is ready to begin talks on the details of a second phase of the ongoing truce in Gaza, two officials from the Palestinian militant group told AFP on Monday.
“Hamas has informed the mediators, during ongoing communications and meetings held with Egyptian mediators last week in Cairo, that we are ready to start the negotiations for the second phase,” one official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
“We call on the mediators to ensure that the occupation adheres to the agreement and does not stall,” they added.
A second official said the group was “waiting for the mediators to initiate the next round.”
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel — the first phase of which came into effect on January 19 — indirect talks to hammer out the details of phase two were due to start Monday.
The 42-day phase one revolves around the release of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for around 1,900 prisoners, most of them Palestinian, being held in Israeli jails.
The second phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining hostages and include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said he will begin discussions about the second phase with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.
The Israeli premier is currently in Washington, and is due to meet Trump on Tuesday.

CAIRO: Weeks into the ceasefire in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians who left for neighboring Egypt are grappling with the question of when they might go home, though they reject the prospect of a mass displacement proposed by US President Donald Trump.
“A lot of people are torn, and I am one of them,” said Shorouk, who earns a living selling Palestinian food in Cairo, going by the name Gaza Girl. “Do you choose to go back and sit in the destruction and a place that still needs to be reconstructed or stay and go back when it is reconstructed?“
Whether or not she is able to go home soon, she does not want people like her to be accepted as residents outside Palestinian land.
“We, the people of Gaza, can only live in Gaza,” she said. “If they give us residencies, the cause will be lost.”
A proposal by Trump that much of the population of Gaza be cleared out and residents sent en masse to Egypt and Jordan has been universally denounced across the Arab world as a form of ethnic cleansing.
“You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said. Asked if it would be a temporary or long term solution, he said: “Could be either.”
Egypt says it will never participate in the mass displacement of Palestinians, which President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi described as an “act of injustice.”
But there are already about 100,000 Palestinians in Egypt, who say they do not know how or when they will be able to return.
During the war in Gaza, the border was mostly sealed and the vast majority of the 2.3 million residents were made homeless and forced into temporary shelters within the territory.
There were however months when some people were permitted to leave, including Palestinians with foreign passports, their close relatives or severely ill patients evacuated for humanitarian reasons.
Most have no long-term permission to stay in Egypt and view their stays as temporary, surviving on small trade or savings. The ceasefire agreement that paused the fighting in January has yet to resolve their fate.
Some say they will return as soon as they have a chance.
“There is nothing better than one’s country and land,” said Hussien Farahat, a father of two.
But others say the personal decision is more complicated, without a home to go back to.
“Even if the war were over, we still do not know our fate and nobody mentioned those stranded in Cairo. Are we going back or what will happen to us? And if we go back, what will happen to us? Our houses are gone,” said Abeer Kamal, who has lived in Cairo since Nov. 2023 and sells handmade bags with her sisters.
“There is nothing, not my house, or my family, or siblings, nothing,” she said.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s campaign has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities there, driven most Gazans from their homes and laid swathes of the territory to waste.
While Gazans in Egypt may vary in their personal plans, all said they reject any proposal by Trump to clear large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza.
“This is our land and it’s not his to control us,” said Fares Mahmoud, another Gazan in Cairo. “It’s our land, we leave it and go back to it when we want.”