Gaza ceasefire live: Trump reportedly says Israel could resume fighting if Hamas fails to uphold agreement | Gaza

Donald Trump has told CNN he would consider allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to resume military action in Gaza if Hamas refuses to uphold its end of the ceasefire deal, saying Israeli forces could return to the streets “as soon as I say the word”.

“What’s going on with Hamas – that’ll be straightened out quickly,” the US president said in a telephone call.

Asked what happens if Hamas refuses to disarm, Trump said he’d “think about it”.

“Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word,” he said. “If Israel could go in and knock the crap of them, they’d do that.”

“I had to hold them back,” he said of the IDF and the Netanyahu administration. “I had it out with Bibi.”

Hamas’ armed wing has said it has returned all the bodies of deceased hostages it was able to recover so far, and that the remaining bodies will require extensive efforts and special equipment to find and recover.

The group said it was committed to what was agreed upon in the ceasefire deal and said it was “exerting great effort” to close the file. In a statement on social media, it said:

The Resistance has fulfilled its commitment to the agreement by handing over all living Israeli prisoners in its custody, as well as the corpses it could access.

As for the remaining corpses, it requires extensive efforts and special equipment for their retrieval and extraction. We are exerting great effort in order to close this file.

The Israeli military has said the Red Cross is on its way to Gaza to receive the bodies of “several” dead hostages.

It did not provide a breakdown on the number of hostages the Red Cross is set to receive but Hamas earlier said it would hand over two bodies.

Further to my last post, Hamas’ armed wing has said it has decided to hand over the bodies of two deceased hostages in Gaza at 10pm local time tonight, Reuters is reporting. I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

The United Nations is seeking a dramatic boost in humanitarian aid for Gaza, saying the hundreds of relief trucks cleared to enter the devastated enclave under a ceasefire were nowhere near the thousands needed to ease a humanitarian disaster.

Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and its top emergency relief coordinator, told Reuters in an interview that thousands of humanitarian vehicles must enter weekly to avert further catastrophe.

“We have 190,000 metric tons of provisions on the borders waiting to go in and we’re determined to deliver. That’s essential life-saving food and nutrition,” Fletcher said.

Israel’s two-year air and ground war against Palestinian militant group Hamas drove almost all Gaza’s 2.2 million people from their homes, and famine is present in the north, global monitors say.

Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Dozens of soldiers and civilians have been killed after fresh clashes broke out along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Islamabad carried out retaliatory airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul, and Kandahar province.

The two sides declared a ceasefire by Wednesday night after the latest outbreak of violence, which came after the deadliest cross-border clashes in years over the weekend.

Both countries accused the other of sparking the violence. Pakistan’s military said the Afghan Taliban had carried out “unprovoked fire” on major border posts close to the Kurram district and the crossing between the Chaman and Spin Boldak districts on Tuesday evening. It said it had retaliated with mortar fire and drone strikes, killing 20 Taliban fighters.

Pakistani security sources confirmed that the air force had also carried out strikes on headquarters of Taliban forces in Kandahar province, where the cross-firing reportedly began, and on targets in Kabul.

Images showed the “friendship gate” at the Chaman-Spin Boldak crossing had sustained significant damage in the attacks, and it remained closed for the day. Hundreds of people fled Pakistani border villages overnight and local residents reported cross-border firing, strikes and drone deployment that lasted into the evening. In Kandahar province, residents said many people along the border areas had also been fleeing.

Pjotr Sauer

The Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, travelled to Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Vladimir Putin, marking their first meeting since the fall of the Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad and his subsequent exile in Russia.

The talks underscored Moscow’s efforts to safeguard its military foothold in Syria and forge relations with the new rulers in Damascus, with both sides taking a pragmatic approach despite having been enemies only a year ago.

The meeting is notable given that Sharaa, a former jihadist, led the successful rebellion against the Moscow-backed Assad regime last year, in which his rebel forces briefly came under fire from Russian jets before Moscow withdrew its support for the Assad family.

Speaking in the Kremlin, Sharaa said his government respected all previously signed agreements between Damascus and Moscow, indicating that Russia would be allowed to retain its military bases in Syria, though the exact scale of their presence remains unclear.

Sharaa’s visit comes after Moscow was forced to postpone a long-planned summit with Arab leaders after a series of cancellations by regional heavyweights preoccupied with Gaza peace talks.

In his remarks, Putin said Russia had “always based its relations with Syria on the interests of the Syrian people”, adding that the relationship “has always been exclusively friendly”.