By lgocl 
WASHINGTON/GAZA — US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that new negotiations aimed at getting more hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza were in the works.
“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed, and we’re committed to getting all the hostages out,” Netanyahu told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump, for his part, said, “We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We’re looking at another ceasefire, we’ll see what happens.”
Netanyahu added that “the hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.”
The Israeli leader, seated next to Trump, highlighted an earlier hostage release agreement negotiated in part by Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff that “got 25 out”.
Netanyahu’s visit follows the collapse of Israel’s six-week truce with Hamas, whose militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, that triggered the Israeli fighting in Gaza.
The fragile ceasefire ended with Israel’s resumption of airstrikes on Gaza on March 18.
The recent truce had allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom were dead, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The Israeli prime minister and his government maintain, against the advice of most hostage families, that increased military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to return the remaining hostages, dead or alive.
Of the 251 hostages abducted during Hamas’s Oct 7 attack, 58 remain in captivity in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.
After staying silent of late on his much-criticized idea of the United States taking over Gaza and displacing its people, Trump plugged it again on Monday.
Trump has repeatedly spoken of Gaza, which the Palestinians want as part of a future state of their own, as a business opportunity for the US, saying the Gaza Strip could be transformed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Countries around the world and in particular Arab nations have rejected this proposal vehemently, including Egypt and Jordan — where Trump has suggested the Palestinians of Gaza be sent to live.
“Having a peace force like the United States there, controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing,” Trump said.
Sticking points
Regarding the post-war governance in Gaza, the leaders of France, Egypt and Jordan on Monday said the Palestinian Authority must head the Gaza Strip.
The question of who will rule the Palestinian territory has been one of the main sticking points in efforts to prolong a ceasefire in Gaza that collapsed last month.
On a visit to Cairo where he met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as well as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, French President Emmanuel Macron said Hamas should have no role in governing the Gaza Strip once its fighting with Israel is over.
Also on Monday, the heads of six United Nations agencies issued a joint statement, calling on the international community to take urgent and decisive action to restore a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, ensure unrestricted humanitarian access, and protect civilian lives.
It warned that for more than a month, no commercial or humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza, where more than 2.1 million people remain trapped under ongoing bombardment and severe shortages. Meanwhile, critical aid — including food, medicine, fuel, and shelter materials — continues to accumulate at border crossings, unable to reach those in need.
The calls and talks on the diplomatic front, however, did not stop the fighting in the enclave. Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Tuesday that Israeli strikes overnight killed at least 19 people across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has resumed its offensive against Hamas.
The agency’s spokesperson told AFP that “19 civilians including several children were martyred” and dozens more wounded in the latest Israeli raids.
Separately, a media outlet affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, a Hamas ally, announced the death on Monday of an employee in an Israeli strike on a tent used by journalists in the Khan Younis area.
The Hamas government media office had on Monday reported the death of journalist Hilmi Al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, in the same strike.
Agencies – Xinhua