Gaza: Palestinians in Gaza City said on Sunday that they were disappointed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of US President Donald Trump's latest Gaza plan.
Netanyahu is in campaign mode as he seeks re-election at a vote due on October 27 but is caught between far-right ministers angered by concessions in Gaza and his key military backer, Trump, who wants progress toward ending the conflict there with a new 15-point peace plan.
Israel has scaled back attacks in Gaza since Monday, when Nikolay Mladenov, the Gaza envoy for Trump's Board of Peace that oversees the Gaza ceasefire, met with Netanyahu.
A source familiar with Israel's position said it had agreed that the military would only act against what it perceives as immediate threats in Gaza and no longer carry out targeted assassinations as it had been doing on a near-daily basis.
"He doesn't care about peace, he doesn't care about the people, he doesn't care about anything, the most important thing is that he wins elections," said one Palestinian man, Ahmed Al-Wahidi, in Gaza City.
Trump announced last month that there had been a breakthrough in his plan to end the war, to which both Israel and Hamas agreed, with Israeli forces withdrawing as Hamas disarms and an International Stabilization Force working with a new Palestinian police force to secure the enclave.
But complications have swiftly emerged. Israel has said that Israeli troops in Gaza would not move before Hamas disarms. Hamas has insisted that Israel halt attacks before it begins implementing the part of the agreement dealing with its arms.
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told Reuters on Sunday that the group remained committed to the roadmap agreed with mediators in Cairo 10 days ago.
