The Hamas Response to Trump’s Gaza “Ceasefire” Proposal
Drop Site obtained Hamas’s amendments, which zero in on increasing aid, defining Israeli withdrawal, and getting U.S. guarantees to end the war.
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Palestinian negotiators from Hamas have proposed a handful of amendments to a U.S.-promoted framework for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire agreement. According to a response that Hamas submitted to the U.S. and Israel and regional mediators from Qatar and Egypt, the Islamic resistance movement hopes the potential agreement will lead to an end to Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza that has lasted for 22 months. Obtained by Drop Site, the document is dated from July 4, when Hamas submitted its formal response to what President Donald Trump called the “final proposal.”
Israel has already denounced Hamas’s position, saying its modifications “are not acceptable to Israel,” but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nonetheless agreed to send a negotiating team to Doha, Qatar Sunday, citing a U.S. request to begin indirect “proximity” talks. Netanyahu will be in Washington D.C. this week and is scheduled to meet with Trump and other U.S. officials Monday.
Trump has said he believes an agreement could be announced in the coming week, but a range of unresolved issues would need to be finalized for a ceasefire to actually take effect. Given Israel’s stated opposition to Hamas’s revisions to the one-and-a-half page, thirteen-point framework, the U.S. and Israel will almost certainly place the blame for any delay squarely on Hamas. Already, Israel has intensified its military strikes on Gaza in recent days, killing scores of people on a daily basis.
In its revisions, Hamas left intact most of the original proposal announced by Trump early last week. Hamas gave its assent to release more Israeli captives earlier in the initial ceasefire than the movement had wanted, and dropped the language that sought a clearly defined five-to-seven year cessation of military operations, as guaranteed by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar.
Hamas’s proposed modifications center on strengthening language on U.S. guarantees that Israel will not resume its war after an initial 60-day period, clarifying the timeline and locations for the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and ensuring that humanitarian aid flows unrestricted into Gaza—along with equipment necessary to swiftly rehabilitate vital infrastructure.
“The hope within the Palestinian side is that all the remaining issues, if there is a clear intention on the American side that they really want the end of the war, all the issues could be easily resolved,” said Sami Al-Arian, a prominent Palestinian academic and activist who is director the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul’s Zaim University. “There are some risks for sure, even if this agreement is carried out until the end of 60 days. Hopefully within that time there will be some sort of an agreement,” Al-Arian told Drop Site in an interview. “But if there isn't, that means the Israelis will go back to their genocidal war: to kill more Palestinians. On average, they've been killing almost somewhere between 80 and 150 a day. And the Palestinian side will continue its war of attrition.”
While Hamas is the official party negotiating the ceasefire, it closely consults with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose armed wing, Saraya Al Quds, still holds an unknown number of Israeli captives in Gaza. Hamas also shares drafts with other Palestinian factions and parties and solicits their input before making any decisions. Hussam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said Saturday that these consultations were done “to ensure a unified Palestinian position to stop the war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip.” Hamas also released statements from a dozen different Palestinian factions and resistance groups in support of Hamas’s response to the U.S.-backed proposal.
“We affirm that the positivity and flexibility offered by the resistance does not mean that it has relinquished any of our people's rights. On the contrary, it wants to move toward stopping this genocide and emphasizing the withdrawal of occupation forces, the entry of aid, and the restoration of life to our people in the Gaza Strip,” said Muhammad al-Haj Musa, a spokesperson for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubashar on Friday. “Naturally, there are a number of points the resistance seeks to establish to alleviate the suffering of our people and ensure an end to the occupation's brutality, crimes, bombing, and attempts to displace the Palestinian people, which it openly declares. Therefore, we want real guarantees. However, what the resistance has offered does not fundamentally affect the core of this framework.”
Sources within Hamas and people close to its negotiating team have told Drop Site in recent days that Palestinian negotiators sought to exhibit flexibility and to keep proposed changes to a minimum, knowing that Israel will seek to crush any attempts to alter the original ultimatum. In May, Hamas responded to a U.S.-Israeli-crafted document by submitting a heavily revised counter-proposal. In a statement on July 2, Hamas said it was seeking a deal "that guarantees an end to the aggression, achieves withdrawal, and urgently provides relief to our people in the Gaza Strip."
"The Struggle Will Continue"
In its revisions to the Trump-backed draft, Hamas proposed stronger language in the framework to ensure that the initial 60-day truce be extended indefinitely—under a U.S. guarantee—until an agreement is reached on definitively ending Israel’s war against Gaza. It also wants Egypt and Qatar listed not only as mediators, but as guarantors of the agreement along with the U.S. “The mediators-guarantors guarantee the continuation of serious negotiations [on a permanent ceasefire] for an extended period until the two parties reach agreement, and the continuation of the [ceasefire and flow of aid] agreed upon in this framework,” Hamas’s draft asserted.
The original language contained more vague language and clauses, such as “if necessary,” and only placed the role of ensuring that negotiations continue on Egypt and Qatar, not the U.S. Hamas’s terms would make clear that the U.S. is responsible for Israel holding its fire during the 60-day initial truce and during subsequent negotiations for a long-term ceasefire.
Hamas is also seeking clearer language binding Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza in accordance with maps agreed upon in the original January agreement. Hamas wants Israeli troops to be withdrawn to their positions from March 2, the day that Israel abandoned the ceasefire; imposed a full spectrum blockade; and then, on March 18, resumed the genocidal assault on Gaza.
The U.S.-backed proposal, which was written in consultation with Israel, employs opaque language and states that Israeli redeployments would be based on “maps to be agreed upon” in technical negotiations. Under Hamas’s modification, Israeli forces would be withdrawn first from the north of the Strip and, a week later, from the south “to the positions that Israeli forces were redeployed to under the maps of the 19 January 2025 agreement, with minor amendments to be agreed upon.”
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have said their agenda is to “conquer” all of Gaza and to remove Palestinians by either killing them or forcing their relocation to other countries. Some government ministers have repeatedly called for the formal annexation of the entire territory.
Hamas’s proposal calls for all aid distribution to be under the control of the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent—to ensure the free flow of large quantities of aid under the terms of the original January agreement that Israel unilaterally abandoned.
The original U.S.-backed draft listed the UN and Red Crescent as merely participating in distribution rather than being in charge of it, as was the case in the original January agreement. Hamas also deleted a phrase—that would have maintained Israeli control over the aid issue—which said food and other supplies would be distributed “in accordance with an agreement to be reached regarding aid for the civilian population.”
While Hamas’s proposal does not mention the U.S. and Israeli aid scheme run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, if Hamas’s revisions are accepted, the GHF’s handful of sites where meager supplies of food have been distributed would become obsolete. At least 650 starving Palestinians have been killed in aid massacres since the GHF began operations on May 27.
In addition to food, medicine, and other vital supplies, Hamas added a clause calling for the immediate “rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, [and the] entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.”
In what may be a move designed to preempt Hamas’s proposals on aid with a concept Trump may likely embrace, the Israeli security cabinet voted on Saturday—over the objections of far right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itimar Ben-Gvir—to expand the distribution of aid in the Gaza Strip through unnamed “international organizations” other than GHF. The Israeli news site YNet said the proposal involved “humanitarian aid distribution zones in Gaza that would separate the civilian population from Hamas.”
In its modifications, Hamas also proposed the re-opening of the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt “for travelers, ill, injured [people], and trade.” Before Israel’s invasion of Rafah and its takeover of the Philadelphi corridor in May 2024, it was Gaza’s only gateway to a world beyond Israel’s control. This will be a contentious issue as Netanyahu has pledged for months that Israeli forces will remain indefinitely entrenched in the Philadelphi corridor, which would effectively prevent the re-opening of the Rafah crossing. Egyptian mediators recently floated the idea to Hamas of Israel remaining in the corridor for an undefined period.
Even if Israel and Hamas do agree on terms for a ceasefire and sign a deal, the reality is that whatever formal agreement they make might soon become academic. Israel systematically violates ceasefires and does so with the full backing of the U.S., as happened under both Trump and his predecessor President Joe Biden. Israeli officials have already claimed that Trump has promised to give Netanyahu a “side letter” supporting a return to the military assault on Gaza if Hamas does not agree to the demilitarization of the enclave and the exiling of its leaders.
Trump and Netanyahu have both indicated that there are other developments in motion related to the recent 12-day war against Iran, the attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a potential Gaza deal. While much of the focus has been placed on possibly expanding the so-called Abraham Accords—a series of “normalization” agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab countries—there are also mounting calls for Israel to seize more of the occupied West Bank. Since January, Israeli forces have carried out operations resulting in the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since 1967.
Some Israeli politicians have begun amplifying their demands for Netanyahu to announce a formal annexation of the entire territory before the Knesset goes into recess on July 27. Fifteen ministers from Netanyahu’s Likud party wrote a letter stating that “the strategic partnership, backing and support of the U.S. and President Donald Trump have made it a propitious time to move forward with it now.”
Hamas is under unprecedented pressure from Palestinians in Gaza to halt the genocide, even temporarily. The concessions Hamas has already made in the past week indicate a willingness to embark on an uncertain path, filled with landmines.
“Despite the destruction and the mayhem, despite the genocide and the killings, the massacres and the starvation, the resistance—even though it has suffered tactically—has not been defeated. It has not raised the white flag,” said Al-Arian. The Palestinian resistance in Gaza “was also able to inflict major losses, particularly in the past few weeks, on the Israeli genocidal forces. In short, the Israelis had to capitulate. They wanted to decimate Hamas and the resistance, but now they are negotiating with it in Doha.”
Among the issues that are not spelled out in either the U.S.-Israeli proposal or Hamas's revised version is what a final agreement will say about Hamas's position in Gaza, whether any leaders would be exiled, and how many of the more than 10,000 Palestinian captives held by Israel will be freed under a potential deal. Hamas has repeatedly said it will relinquish governance of Gaza and hand power over to an independent technocratic committee of Palestinians. But it has staunchly rejected the total demilitarization of Gaza, saying this would amount to a surrender of the Palestinian liberation cause.
“I think what the Americans are seeking here is a geopolitical advantage by trying to broker a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and other regimes with the Zionist regime. That plan by the Americans, even though it will disadvantage the Palestinians, might actually carry the day, in which case we may see the end of this war,” said Al-Arian. “But the struggle will continue until the Palestinians get their freedom, regardless of what the Israelis do. They are the invaders. They are the oppressors. They are the colonialists. They are the genociders. The Palestinians will continue in their struggle until they liberate their land and until every Palestinian is free.”
Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report.
It's difficult for Hamas to negotiate with entities that have no principles or morals.
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