Netanyahu signals moving ahead with Trump’s Gaza plan as Israel receives unblocked US shipment of heavy bombs
Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested moving ahead with Donald Trump’s plan to clear out Palestinians from Gaza, as Israel received a previously blocked shipment of heavy bombs.
President Trump’s proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza and redevelop it under US ownership has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups, regional powers and US allies, but Mr Netanyahu said on Sunday it is “the only viable plan to enable a different future”.
The Israeli prime minister also denied claims it was ethnic cleansing.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters upon arrival in West Palm Beach, Florida. Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Ever since the UN General Assembly voted for Palestine to be split into an Arab state and a Jewish state, against significant opposition in 1947, the issue of land, and who it belongs to, has been one of the most divisive in the region.
Mr Netanyahu said that any emigration from Gaza should be “voluntary” but rights groups and critics warned the plan amounted to coercion given Israel had razed the enclave.
The Israeli PM said he and Mr Trump had a “common strategy” for Gaza and that the US president’s plan was “right on the dot”.
Speaking to reporters in Florida on Sunday, Mr Trump said: “I told Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] you do whatever you want.”
He added:”[It] will be up to Israel what the next step is, in consultation with me.”
Palestinians sit among the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel as politicians try to decide the fate of the enclave. Pic: Reuters/Hatem Khaled
The comments raise further concerns for the fragile Gaza ceasefire, which came under threat last week.
Hamas initially said it would not be releasing the hostages scheduled to be sent back to Israel over worries about the supply of vitally needed aid – but later backtracked.
‘Peace through strength’ – with heavy bombs
It comes as Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the US, initially blocked by Joe Biden, that Mr Trump greenlit.
Mr Trump said he lifted the block because he believed in “peace through strength”.
The MK-84 is an unguided 907kg bomb that can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
An aviation ordnance worker moves the heavy bombs. File pic: Reuters/Jim Hampshire/US Navy photo
The Biden administration refused to clear the weapons for export over fears of what they could do in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
Mr Trump said on Sunday: “They contracted for the weapons a long time ago with the Biden administration, and then Biden wouldn’t deliver the weapons. But I look at it differently. I say peace through strength.”
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A Palestinian man pushes a child in a wheelchair past destroyed buildings. Pic: Reuters/Hatem Khaled
Phase two of ceasefire deal
Israel’s security cabinet is set to meet on Monday to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire agreement which brought to an end around 16 months of fighting, triggered by the 7 October 2023 attack.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage when Hamas launched its massacre in Israel.
A ceasefire agreed last month managed to finally pause fighting, but its first phase ends in two weeks.
Negotiations on the second phase were meant to begin two weeks ago.
If successful, it would continue the release of hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners as well as a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Mr Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that “phase two is absolutely going to begin” and he had “very productive” calls on Sunday with Mr Netanyahu and officials from Egypt and Qatar, which serve as mediators, about continuing talks this week.
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‘Trump is greatest friend Israel has ever had’
Three Palestinians killed
Meanwhile, over the weekend the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry blamed Israel for the deaths of three Palestinian police officers in Rafah.
It said the officers had been deployed to secure the entry of aid trucks and this was a clear violation of the ceasefire.
Israel’s military said it had attacked several armed individuals moving towards Israeli forces.
Six Israeli hostages have been handed over by Hamas on Saturday, while hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are due to be released.
The Gaza ceasefire deal continues to hold, despite tensions rising this week when Hamas initially handed over the body of an unidentified Palestinian woman instead of Israeli mother-of-two Shiri Bibas.
The release of hostages and prisoners on Saturday is the last one scheduled in the ceasefire’s first phase.
Five of the Israeli hostages were handed over in public displays, with the captives ushered out of cars by balaclava-clad men holding rifles. The remaining hostage was released to the Red Cross in private.
Of the hostages released today, two had been in captivity for a decade.
Israel is expected to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners later on Saturday, including a man who has been detained for more than 40 years. However, Hamas claimed the release had been delayed as the detainees had been “assaulted”.
Follow latest: Delay to prisoner release due to ‘assaults’ – Hamas
The first of six hostages to be released
Who are the freed Israeli hostages?
The first two hostages released on Saturday were Tal Shoham and Avera Mengistu.
Mr Shoham, 40, was visiting his wife’s family in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas militants stormed into the community during the October 7 attacks in 2023.
His wife, two young children and three other relatives were also abducted, but they were freed in an exchange in November 2023.
Abra Mengistu hugs his family in Israel after his release. Pic: IDF
Mr Mengistu, a 39-year-old Ethiopian-Israeli, had been held in Gaza since he entered the territory on his own in 2014.
Watching the moment he was freed on TV, his family broke out in song as he walked free for the first time in more than a decade.
Later on Saturday, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov and Omer Wenkert were handed over to the Red Cross in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
Mr Shem Tov, 22, was taken during the October 7 attacks on the Nova music festival.
The computer programmer had shared his live location with his family, who eventually noticed he was headed towards Gaza and contact with him was lost.
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Hostage reunited with parents
Mr Cohen, 27, was also taken from the Nova festival, alongside his fiancee.
Released hostages have said that he was kept in chains and deprived of food and sunlight during his time in captivity, according to reports.
Mr Wenkert, 23, was taken from Nova. He suffers from colitis and requires special medical care, it has been reported.
Finally, Hisham al Sayed, 28, was handed over in a private ceremony.
The Bedouin-Israeli, from the village of Hura in the Negev desert, has been a captive since he crossed into Gaza in 2015.
Nael Barghouti pictured in 2011. Pic: Reuters
Who are the Palestinian prisoners due to be released?
More than 600 Palestinian prisoners are also expected to be released on Saturday.
According to the prisons office, which is run by Hamas, this includes 50 who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, 60 described as having “high” sentences, 47 prisoners from the “Wafa al Ahrar” 2011 prisoner exchange deal who had since been re-arrested, and 445 who were arrested after 7 October attacks.
The “Wafa al-Ahrar” deal was the 2011 prisoner exchange agreement that saw the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1027 Palestinian prisoners.
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Among the most high-profile Palestinians to be released is Nael Barghouti – the longest-serving prisoner, who has been inside for 43 years.
Also on the list are several journalists, many of whom covered events at al Shifa hospital, and Yousef al Mansi, a Palestinian minister in Gaza.
It had been expected that Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, would be among those being released on Saturday.
However it later emerged that he was not on the list of those being freed.
The man arrested for stabbing a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial is a 19-year-old Syrian refugee, according to prosecutors.
They said it appeared he’d been planning to kill Jewish people for several weeks and was apparently motivated by the Middle East conflict.
The attack happened about 6pm on Friday and he was arrested nearby about three hours later.
His hands and trousers were smeared with blood and the suspected weapon was in his backpack. He was also carrying a Koran and a prayer rug, prosecutors added.
Police cordoned off the Holocaust memorial after the attack. Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
The suspect is said to have arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied minor in 2023, had no criminal record and was unknown to police.
The 30-year-old Spanish man who was stabbed needed emergency surgery after being wounded in the head and neck.
Prosecutors said he was in an induced coma but his life was no longer at risk.
The stabbing comes a day before Germany’s national election in which the far-right and anti-immigration AfD is expected to come second.
Campaigning has been overshadowed by a number of attacks by migrants – which appear to have bolstered the party’s support.
Protesters have marched against the AfD but it’s predicted to do well. Pic: Reuters
A woman and her two-year-old daughter died when a car drove into a crowd in Munich this month. A 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker was arrested.
Another Afghan national was arrested over the stabbing deaths of a toddler and a 41-year-old man in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg last month.
In December, a Saudi man, who had lived in Germany for years, killed six people when he drove his car into people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg.
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More than one million migrants arrived in the country from 2015-2016, mostly from Syria, but also from Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them fleeing war and political instability.
Prosecutors said they had no evidence the suspect in the Berlin stabbing is linked to any of the other attacks, or to any extremist organisations.
He was scheduled to appear before an investigating judge on Saturday.
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