Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks under way; Putin and Netanyahu discussed Trump Gaza plan, says Kremlin – Middle East crisis live

Rima Hassan, one of those who landed in Greece after being expelled from Israel for trying to ship aid to Gaza, reported having been hit by Israeli police after the flotilla was intercepted.

Hassan, a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament, told AFP: “I was beaten by two police officers when they put me in the van.” Hassan said she and other detainees were kept in groups of up to 15 per cell on mattresses in a high-security Israeli prison.

Yasmin Acar, a member of the flotilla’s steering committee, said the detainees were “treated like animals” and “terrorists”.

“We were physically assaulted, we were deprived of sleep,” Acar said. “We did not have any clean water. The first 48 hours, there was no food, no water at all.”

Israel has rejected the accusations of mistreatment and has branded the flotilla an offshoot of Hamas.

As Hamas and Israel began indirect talks today in Sharm El-Sheikh on ending the war in Gaza under the plan put forward by Donald Trump, Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian state intelligence, reports that the delegations “are discussing preparing ground conditions for the release of detainees and prisoners”.

“Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working with both sides to establish a mechanism” for the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, it added.

Behind closed doors and under tight security, negotiators are to speak through mediators shuttling back and forth, only weeks after Israel tried to kill Hamas’s lead negotiators in a strike on Qatar’s capital.

Hamas’s lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who survived Israel’s attack in Doha last month, held a meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials ahead of the talks, an Egyptian security source said.

This round of negotiations, launched on the eve of the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, “may last for several days”, said a Palestinian source close to Hamas’s leadership.

“We expect the negotiations to be difficult and complex, given the occupation’s intentions to continue its war of extermination,” he told AFP.

As we’ve been reporting, Trump, whose envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected in Egypt, has urged negotiators to “move fast” to end the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes continued on Monday, killing at least seven Palestinian people, despite Trump’s order to stop.

According to AFP’s Palestinian source, the initial hostage-prisoner exchange will “require several days, depending on field conditions related to Israeli withdrawals, the cessation of bombardment and the suspension of all types of air operations”.

Negotiations will look to “determine the date of a temporary truce”, a Hamas official said, as well as create conditions for a first phase of the plan, in which 47 hostages held in Gaza are to be released in return for 1,700 of Palestinian detainees.

The first Scottish citizen to be deported back from Israel after travelling on a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza has described her experience in jail as “absolute hell”.

Margaret Pacetta, 71, who arrived back into Glasgow Central station on Monday evening, said her treatment in Israel’s notorious Ktzi’ot prison was “vile”. She told the Scottish Herlad that Israeli forces took everything away from her, including her medication, glasses, hearing aids and clothes.

Prisoners were given just small amounts of ant-covered cucumber and stale bread to survive on inside the prison, she added.

The pensioner is one of four Scots who were on board the flotilla that was attempting to take food to the people of Gaza but were blocked off by the IDF who help them in jail before deporting them via Istanbul.

Jim Hickey, Yvonne Ridley and Sid Khan were the others but it is unknown when they will return to Scotland.

Leavitt is asked if the Trump administration would recognise a Palestinian state if Hamas agrees to cede power to a transitional technocratic government in Gaza.

She declines to “get ahead of the technical talks”.

“This is, we expect and we hope, going to be one of the greatest peace deals this world has ever seen,” she adds.

Asked about the Cairo talks at the White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt says the Trump administration “is working very hard to move the ball forward as quickly as we can”.

She says Donald Trump wants to see a ceasefire and the hostages released. “The technical teams are discussing that as we speak to ensure that the environment is perfect to release those hostages,” she says.

She adds that the teams are going over the lists of the Israeli hostages and also the Palestinians political prisoners who will be released.

“Those talks are underway, and the president is very much on the ball and is being apprised of this situation,” she says.

Mothers Against Genocide Scotland have said one of the Scottish citizens on the Global Sumud Flotilla, Margaret Pacetta, was on her way home to Glasgow.

MAGS have been campaigning for five Scottish citizens who were detained last week and say they are “desperately awaiting news” on two others, Sid Khan and Jim Hickey.

They have not had any update about a fourth, journalist and author Yvonne Ridley, but the fifth, student Mina Moreno, was in touch with home two days ago and is believed to be safe, they said.

Pacetta, 71, told Citizen Media France on Saturday: “That prison was awful; no food and no water. My broken leg, the girl said to me ‘what happened [with] your broken leg?’. I said ‘It’s broke, she slammed a metal door on [and] went ‘sorry’,” adding “we are fine, we are fine”.

A supporter of Ridley said they not received any communication yet from the former journalist but were “hopeful”.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said on Sunday evening they had lost track of Ridley during the transfer to Istanbul.

We’ll be hearing shortly from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and there will likely be some questions regarding today’s crucial talks in Cairo.

I’ll bring you any relevant news lines here once the press briefing gets going.

“We are not even seeing the bare minimum from our governments,” the activist Greta Thunberg said after her release by Israel.

She has arrived in Greece after she and another 170 people were deported for taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke on the phone with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog on Monday and expressed hope that an agreement on the release of the hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza could be reached within the next few days, a German government spokesperson said.

The talks in Egypt must now lead to a swift agreement, and Hamas should lay down its arms, the spokesperson said.

International activists, journalists and lawyers deported from Israel after attempting to breach the 16-year maritime blockade of Gaza as part of a humanitarian flotilla have alleged being subjected to brutal physical and verbal abuse by Israeli forces during their detention.

The alleged abuses included sleep and medication deprivation, beatings, having automatic rifles pointed at their heads, dogs set upon them, having to sleep on the floor, being subjected to insults and being made to watch footage of the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

“I was beaten from the moment we entered the port until the very end,” said Saverio Tommasi, an Italian journalist. “Blows to my back, blows to my head – and they [the Israeli soldiers] laughed, laughed at all of it. Anyone who failed to keep their eyes down was punished with a hit to the head.”

Israeli forces intercepted all the boats of the Global Sumud flotilla (GSF), carrying more than 400 people including parliamentarians and the environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg, last week. Most of the people were held at Ketziot, a high-security prison in the Negev desert used primarily to detain Palestinians whom Israel accuses of involvement in terrorist activities.

Israel’s foreign ministry has dismissed all claims of mistreatment of members of the flotilla as “brazen lies”, posting on X on Sunday evening: “All the detainees’ legal rights are fully upheld.”

The national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said he was “proud” of the way staff behaved at Ketziot. He said in a statement on the activists: “They should get a good feel for the conditions in Ketziot prison and think twice before they approach Israel again.”

Related: Gaza flotilla members allege beatings and insults in Israeli detention

German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on Monday that the first phase of US president Donald Trump’s plans to halt the war in Gaza must be achieved by the start of next week at the latest but added that all the other issues would need time.

The first phase aims at a ceasefire, release of hostages and prisoners, restraint in the military conflict and bringing in supplies to Gaza - all of which are feasible, said Wadephul.

“All other issues are very complicated and, indeed, that is why they also need time,” said Wadephul at a press conference in Tel Aviv.

“We must not abandon all diplomatic efforts, but I would like to focus now on taking this first decisive step together.”

A group advocating for the return of hostages held in Gaza have urged the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the US president, Donald Trump, for what they called his unprecedented contributions to global peace.

“At this very moment, President Trump’s comprehensive plan to release all remaining hostages and finally end this terrible war is on the table,” the families wrote.

“For the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over.”

Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.

The winner of this year’s Nobel Prize Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.

The US, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, have fuelled Israel’s war – considered a genocide by many experts – by providing it with vast amounts of lethal weapons and diplomatic cover on the international stage.

Helena Smith is the Guardian’s correspondent in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have amassed at Athens International Airport ahead of a specially chartered plane landing in the Greek capital with what the Israeli foreign ministry described as “171 additional provocateurs from the Hamas-Sumud flotilla, including Greta Thunberg.”

“We expect them at around 5pm (local time),” Yiannis Sifanakis, a prominent Stop the War activist, told the Guardian as protesters chanted “freedom to Palestine.”

He added:

We know that all 27 Greeks are on board and will come through, but we are not sure if the others will simply transit here.

The foreign ministry said the deportees included citizens from Italy, France, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, and the United States.

“All the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt were and will continue to be fully upheld. The lies they are spreading are part of their pre-planned fake news campaign. The only violent incident came from a Hamas–Sumud provocateur who bit a female medical staff member of Ketsiyot Prison,” Israel’s foreign ministry wrote in a post on X.

Accusations of harsh treatment in the notorious facility have been widespread since flotilla participants began to return to their respective countries over the weekend.

The Greek branch of March to Gaza, quoting lawyers who had met the activists, said it was clear they had been denied access to drinkable water and medicines with some subject to physical abuse.

All the detainees had been held in vastly overcrowded cells, they said. “We are hearing that those who refused to sign a document accepting they had entered Israel illegally are still being held in custody,” said another Greek protestor. “It is outrageous.”

Protesters, who now include MPs form leftwing opposition parties, have unfurled a giant Palestinian flag in the arrivals halls of Athens International Airport.

The Israeli foreign ministry told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that 138 activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla were still in Israeli custody.

In an earlier post, we mentioned that the environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, and 170 other members of the Global Sumud Flotilla were deported from Israel on Monday after their vessel – which was carrying aid for Palestinians – was intercepted last week.

Israel says the 171 people have been deported to Greece and Slovakia and are citizens of Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria and the US.

Italy’s ITA Airways will extend the suspension of flights to and from Tel Aviv until the end of the year, it said on Monday.

The decision also concerns two flights scheduled for New Year’s Day 2026, the company, part of the Lufthansa group, said in a statement.

Iran acquitted French-German national Lennart Monterlos of espionage charges, the chief justice of the southern province of Hormozgan said on Monday, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Monterlos is a young cyclist who was arrested in Iran in June during a 12-day-war between Iran and Israel.

The prosecutor could still raise objections to his acquittal, Tasnim added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was ready to act as a “neutral humanitarian intermediary” to help bring Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees back to their families.

“A lasting ceasefire is critical to saving lives and breaking the cycle of death and destruction,” the ICRC president, Mirjana Spoljaric, said.

Spoljaric added:

Our teams are ready to act as a neutral humanitarian intermediary to help bring hostages and detainees back to their families. We are also prepared to bring aid into Gaza and distribute it safely to civilians in desperate need.

In a press release, the ICRC said it has facilitated the release of 148 hostages and 1,931 detainees since October 2023, and has also facilitated the return of human remains.

Iran signalled its support for Trump’s Gaza plan, with the country’s foreign ministry saying it supports any initiative that brings an end to the genocide of Palestinian people.

Iran’s foreign ministry wrote in a post on X:

Taking into account the dangerous dimensions and aspects of this proposal, and while reiterating its warning about the repeated breaches and obstructionism by the Zionist regime in fulfilling its promises, especially in light of its expansionist and racist plans, the Islamic Republic of Iran considers any decision in this regard to be within the authority of the Palestinian people and resistance.

It welcomes any decision by them that guarantees halting the genocide of Palestinians, the withdrawal of the occupying Zionist army from Gaza, respect for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the entry of humanitarian aid, and the reconstruction of Gaza.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas is a Hezbollah ally also backed by Iran.

Sam Jones is Madrid correspondent for the Guardian

The leftwing former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, said members of the flotilla had been subjected to “abuse and mistreatment” after they were “kidnapped” by the Israeli authorities.

Speaking on her return to Spain on Sunday night, Colau said: “The flotilla was illegally intercepted by Israel and we were kidnapped and all our fundamental rights were violated when we were put in prison where there were no guarantees whatsoever, and where we were mistreated.”

But such treatment, she added, was “nothing in comparison with what the Palestinian population is suffering”.

Colau, who was mayor between 2015 and 2023, said she and her fellow detainees were initially refused permission to leave the cells where they were held, adding that some flotilla members with chronic health conditions were also denied access to medications.

“When we asked for a doctor, we were told that that was for humans,” she said. The former politician also said they were deprived of sleep and that guards with dogs and guns came into their cells.

“The cell gave on to a patio with an enormous photo of Gaza bombed to pieces, and which had a message written in Arabic: ‘Welcome to the new Gaza’,” she said. “That is the prison of a fascist state.”

The last of the 49 Spaniards who sailed with the flotilla were expected to fly back to Spain on Monday.

Spain’s labour minister and deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz, welcomed them back and said they had shown “dignity and solidarity” through the flotilla.

“We won’t stop until the last of them are back home,” she wrote on Bluesky. “The genocide must stop. Palestine deserves justice and dignity.”

The UN commission of inquiry, several human rights groups and the world’s leading association of genocide scholars have concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

Despite the evidence, Israel denies the accusation and says it has only acted in self-defence.

Tomorrow will be exactly two years since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 taken hostage.

The Israeli military launched a war in Gaza in response, so far killing at least 67,139 Palestinian people, according to the territory’s health ministry, mostly civilians.

The death toll does not include the thousands of people buried under the rubble.

There are estimated to be 48 hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas, only 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has published some key statistics on life in Gaza amid the Israeli assault:

• Nearly 90% of water, sanitation, and hygiene resources destroyed or damaged

• Over 60% of families lack access to soap

• Over 40% live near uncollected waste

• Half a million women and girls lack sufficient menstrual hygiene materials

Unrwa has been the major distributor of aid in Gaza and has provided education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region.

But an Israeli ban on the agency in Gaza and the occupied West Bank took effect earlier this year after Israel accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. Unrwa denies this claim.

Palestinian Unrwa personnel in Gaza continue to provide services and assistance to the civilian population and staff do the same in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

In a post on X published yesterday, Unrwa wrote:

Unrwa continues to distribute water, hygiene kits, and collect solid waste. Unrwa has the teams and systems in place to deliver.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has praised Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, saying it could mark the start of a path towards stability in the region.

In an address to mark the 1973 war between Israel and Egypt that led to the end of Israel’s occupation of the Sinai peninsula, Sisi said on Monday:

I can only extend my praise and appreciation for US President Donald Trump for his initiative that seeks a ceasefire in Gaza after two years of war, genocide, killing and destruction.

A ceasefire, the return of prisoners and detainees, the reconstruction of Gaza and the launch of a peaceful political process that leads to the establishment and recognition of the Palestinian state means we are on the right path to lasting peace and stability.

Egypt and Qatar are working to convince Hamas to accept Trump’s ultimatum to end Israel’s war in Gaza. Both have both been key meditators between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

Trump’s plan requires Hamas to return all 48 hostages – about 20 of them thought by Israel to still be alive – give up power and disarm in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and an end to Israel’s assault.

However, the proposal, which has been accepted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sets no path to Palestinian statehood.

Hamas has only agreed to three points: the release of all hostages, the surrendering of power and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

As to the immediate future, the plan provides for “full aid” to be sent to Gaza, parts of which are suffering from famine and regular deaths from starvation…

With Hamas banished, Gaza’s governance would be passed to a temporary transitional body in the form of a “technocratic and apolitical Palestinian committee”, which would in turn be overseen and supervised by an international “Board of Peace”, headed by Donald Trump. The board would include other heads of state and international officials, including the former British prime minister, Tony Blair.

That body would organise and set the framework for funding the redevelopment of Gaza while the Palestinian Authority, the political entity nominally in charge of Palestinian affairs in the West Bank, had undergone a process of reform.

A panel of experts will be convened to create what the plan calls a “Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize” the territory, which the US president has previously envisioned being transformed into a “riviera” with a string of hi-tech megacities.

Mention of the thorny issue of a future Palestinian state, which Netanyahu vehemently opposes, is left until the end of the plan, with “an interfaith dialogue process” to be set up to promote “the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence”.