Israeli troops kill 31 Palestinians in Gaza as Qatar says discussion needed on Trump peace plan

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CAIRO (AP) — Qatar said Tuesday that further talks were needed over details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan aimed at ending the nearly two-year war in Gaza, as Hamas weighed its reply. In Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians, local hospitals said.

The comments by Qatar, a key mediator, appeared to reflect Arab countries' discontent over the text of the 20-point plan that the White House put out after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced they had agreed on it Monday.

Three Arab officials told The Associated Press that changes had been made in the original proposal that Arab and Muslim countries had worked out with Trump – changes in favor of Israel. The officials, who came from regional powers involved in the talks, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

The depth of the Arab countries’ discontent was not clear, and they have continued to express broad support for the plan. But Qatar’s comments indicated they could seek further negotiation over some of its terms -- even as Trump told reporters Tuesday that Hamas has “three or four days” to respond.

Arab mediators and Turkish officials are to meet with Hamas representatives Tuesday in Doha to discuss the plan, said Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari.

The plan requires Hamas to release hostages, leave power in Gaza and disarm in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners and an end to fighting. The plan guarantees the flow of humanitarian aid and promises reconstruction. But it sets no path to Palestinian statehood. For the foreseeable future, Gaza and its more than 2 million Palestinians would be under international governance through a so-called “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the 20 points announced by the U.S. “are principles … that require detailed discussion and how to work through them.”

Speaking to the Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera, he pointed to the issue of the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza, saying it “requires clarification.”

The plan's text said Israeli troops would withdraw only as a planned international security force is able to replace them. It also indicated Israel would keep control of a band of territory around Gaza's perimeter.

In a statement Monday night, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries backing the plan said they wanted to work out a final version that includes a “full Israeli withdrawal,” as well as a clear path to a Palestinian state that integrates the Gaza Strip and West Bank — something Netanyahu's government fiercely opposes.

The Arab officials who spoke to the AP expressed frustration with the White House's 20 points. “This is not what we agreed on,” said one. “This is the Netanyahu plan.”

Many Palestinians in the decimated coastal enclave are wary of the proposal. To some, the international governance smacked of the colonial British Mandate that ruled Palestine from 1920 to 1948.

“They want to impose their own peace,” Umm Mohammed, a history teacher who sheltered with her family in Gaza City, said. “In fact, this is not a peace plan. It’s a surrender plan. It returns us to times of colonialism.”

Mahmoud Abu Baker, a displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the proposal favors Israel and implements all its demands without giving concessions.

“(The proposal) tells that we, as Palestinians, as Arabs, are not qualified to rule ourselves and that they, the white people, will rule us,” he said.

With the peace proposal, families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas were torn between heightened hopes and a realism that past signs of progress have fallen apart. Hamas is thought to be holding 48 hostages, 20 of whom are believed by Israel to be alive – and under the plan, they would be freed within 72 hours of both sides’ accepting the deal.

“For two years now, I have been waiting for Elkana, my husband, in endless pain,” said Rivka Bohbot, wife of hostage Elkana Bohbot, in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Now I demand that these impressive words be turned into even greater and more impressive actions — actions that bring the hostages home,” she said.

Israelis visiting a memorial for the music festival where 364 people were killed during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, expressed skepticism.

“Everyone pins their hopes on (Trump),” said Amit Zander, whose daughter, Noa Zander, was killed at the festival. “It’s up to Hamas. Israel wants it, and beyond that, it’s no longer in our hands.”

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops opened fire, killing 17 Palestinians and wounding 33 others while they were attempting to access humanitarian aid in central Gaza, according to nearby Al-Awda Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said troops fired when individuals approached their position “in a manner that endangered them.”

Israeli strikes in central and southern Gaza killed 19 others, according to local hospitals.

One of the strikes hit a tent housing a family that had fled Gaza City earlier this month, killing seven people, including four women and a child. Another killed a man, his 7-months-pregnant wife and their young child, Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said.

The Israeli military said in a statement that over the past 24 hours, its troops killed several armed militants and struck more than 160 targets of Hamas infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts.

Hospitals in southern Gaza are gearing up for a flood of displaced wounded and sick Palestinians fleeing Gaza City in the face of Israel’s stepped-up offensive there. Already some 450,000 people have been displaced from the north since mid-August, according to the U.N., and hundreds of thousands are believed to remain in Gaza City, where a famine has been declared.

“We don’t have enough material. We don’t have enough medications. The number of people, particularly the people coming down from Gaza … is starting to overwhelm the facilities, which were already too full from before,” said Dr. Paul Ransom, an emergency doctor volunteering at UK-Med, a British aid charity which runs one of the main field hospitals in southern Gaza.

He said over the past weeks, thousands of wounded arrived from the north, many with dirty open wounds because of long road journeys. Others showed severe signs of malnutrition, he said.

The UK-Med-operated field hospital is expanding its 90-bed capacity field hospital to include over 110 beds, he said. Nasser Hospital, the main general medical facility in southern Gaza, is already overwhelmed and is trying to expand its 300-bed capacity.

At Nasser, there were often 150 wounded in just one hour over the past three months, he added.

“It is like a conveyor belt of death and injury that we are seeing coming through the bigger hospital here in Nasser,” he said.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half the dead.

Its campaign was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others. Most of the hostages have been freed under previous ceasefire deals.

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Lidman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.