Al Jazeera :
United States President Donald Trump said he believes a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas could be reached within a week.
Trump came out with the surprise comment while speaking to reporters on Friday, saying he was hopeful after speaking to some of the people involved in trying to get a truce.
“We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire,” the president said, without revealing who he had been in contact with.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman in Jordan, said Trump’s comment will be “welcome news” to the starved and bombed population of Gaza, but she also cautioned that there are “no negotiations at this moment happening anywhere in the region”.
“What we do know is that talk of a ceasefire increased exponentially after the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Israel does not want to talk about ending the war. In fact, the Israeli prime minister would be risking a lot if he did,” Odeh said.
But, she added, there is an understanding, according to many reports, that Netanyahu would have to agree to some sort of ceasefire in exchange for normalisation deals with Arab states, which the Trump administration has promoted.
