The store's books largely focus on the Middle East, and it has long been known as an intellectual oasis where readers from across the Israeli-Palestinian divide can share ideas. JERUSALEM — For years, the Palestinian-owned Educational Bookshop in east Jerusalem has been a rare island of dialogue in an increasingly divided city, but an Israeli police raid on the store this week has sparked fears about the suppression of free speech. While the well-known store and its smaller branch across the street were open Tuesday, the bust saw detectives confiscate books in trash bags and arrest two members of the owner’s family. The incident has raised broader concerns about the status of shared places where Israelis and Palestinians can peacefully come together and debate. “I, like many diplomats, enjoy browsing for books at Educational Bookshop. I know its owners, the Muna family, to be peace-loving proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open for discussion and intellectual exchange,” Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, said in a post on X. “I am concerned to hear of the raid and their detention in prison,” he added. The store, founded on Salah al-Din Street in 1984 by the Muna family, sells books in many languages that largely focus on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has long been known in the area as an intellectual oasis where readers from across the political divide can share ideas. Security footage from Sunday afternoon that the Muna family shared with NBC News showed plainclothes officers rifling through books and taking away some of them in garbage bags. During the raid on the predominantly English-language store, officers also arrested the manager, Mahmoud Muna, and his nephew Ahmad. Both have since been released. Mahmoud’s brother, Morad, said that the police had taken books with a Palestinian flag or icon printed on them and that they used Google Translate to help understand what the material was saying. “In our book, anyone from any religion, from any side, can say his opinion without being afraid. He can discuss any kind of thing,” he said. “In the west side of Jerusalem, there are English bookstores that have the same books that we have, and you will never hear that they arrested the owners,” he added. A spokesperson from the Israeli police said that the two were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism at bookstores in Jerusalem.” Police added that the detectives had confiscated from the store “numerous books containing inciteful material,” pointing to the children’s coloring book titled “From the River to the Sea,” written by South African author Nathi Ngubane, as one example. The police added that they had also raided a bookshop in Jerusalem’s Old City last week, which had material supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State group. The title of the coloring book is also a pro-Palestinian slogan often used at protests against Israel and refers to the geographical area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea that encompasses Israel and the Palestinian territories. The American Jewish Committee says on its website that the slogan “can be used to call for the elimination of the State of Israel and/or ethnic cleansing of Jews living there,” while the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies protested the publication of the book when it was initially released. Wasim Khalis, who owns a clothing store next door to Educational Bookshop, said he had been drinking coffee in the bookstore around 3 p.m. local time when four plainclothes officers entered. After a few minutes, he said, the officers flashed a warrant and asked customers to leave, while a second group of officers went across the street to another store owned by the family. “It was very strange,” he said. “This isn’t a new store; it has been here for decades. They took items that were very normal and could be found anywhere, including on the internet.” Some 10 diplomats including those from the European Union and the United Kingdom sat in on a debate Monday on the Munas’ release date at Jerusalem’s District Court. Meanwhile, supporters of the Educational Bookstore wrote about their alarm at the raid online, with a smaller number gathering outside the courthouse. “We fear that the raid on the store, the confiscation of books from it, and the imprisonment of its owner under the pretext of ‘violating public order’ is a regime provocation designed to erase the Palestinian cultural narrative and harass those involved in it,” Israeli author Ilan Sheinfeld said in a post on X. One of the in-person protesters was Galit Samuel, an Israeli patron who had traveled from Tel Aviv to be there. She said of the Munas that “they are both men of peace, and they are promoting Palestinian culture in peaceful ways.” “It’s unimaginable that such people were arrested and books were confiscated,” she added. “It’s a grave attack on free speech and free thinking.”

Israel's prime minister said he had ordered troops to mass around Gaza and threatened a breakdown in the ceasefire after Hamas said it would indefinitely delay hostage releases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to withdraw from his country's ceasefire with Hamas and resume “intense fighting” in the Gaza Strip if the militant group does not release more hostages by midday Saturday. Netanyahu's warning followed President Donald Trump's threat in recent days to let “all hell break out” in Gaza, after Hamas reiterated Tuesday that it would indefinitely postpone the next round of hostage-prisoner swap scheduled for Saturday. The Palestinian organization has accused Israel of violating terms of their three-week-old ceasefire. After a four-hour emergency meeting with Israel's security Cabinet on Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu said he had received unanimous support to mass Israeli troops in and around Gaza. “If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon — the ceasefire will end and the [Israel Defense Forces] will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” he said in a video statement following the meeting. It was unclear whether Netanyahu was referring to the three hostages originally scheduled to be released Saturday or all hostages held in Gaza. While Hamas earlier this week said it planned to delay hostage releases — it has accused Israel of carrying out deadly shootings, blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid and inhibiting Palestinians' passage to northern Gaza — it has since reaffirmed its commitment to the truce without explicitly reversing it position on freeing Israeli captives. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told NBC News in an interview Tuesday that the militant group is committed to the ceasefire deal, to which “it adheres fully and not selectively as the Israeli side does.” Responding to Trump’s earlier threat, Qassem added that Gaza was already “living in a state of hell.” “He was cleaning and preparing the house ... so that we could all go back home together,” she said. Nearly 16 months of war in the Gaza Strip were put on pause after a fragile, three-phase ceasefire deal came into effect Jan. 19. Under the first phase, due to last 42 days, Hamas has incrementally released 16 of 33 hostages, as well as separately releasing five Thai hostages. So far, 76 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, with more than 35 of them believed to be dead. Most of those still held in Gaza were among the 250 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli officials. Since Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began, more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, with the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population forcibly displaced, according to local officials. In Netanyahu's statement late Tuesday, his rhetoric echoed that of Trump, who on Monday demanded that Hamas free all remaining hostages "by Saturday at 12 o’clock." The president did not specify whether he meant midnight or midday. Trump doubled down on his position Tuesday following a meeting at the White House with Jordan's King Abdullah, reiterating his belief that Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians displaced from Gaza. The Jordanian king reiterated his "steadfast opposition" to Trump's plan although he also said that Jordan could take in 2,000 Palestinian children from Gaza with cancer or other serious illnesses. Last week, Trump suggested that the 2.3 million residents of Gaza should leave the enclave so that the United States could take over and develop the territory into "the Riviera of the Middle East.” Netanyahu on Tuesday said the security Cabinet had endorsed Trump’s plan. This week's rising tensions suggest the ceasefire deal may be “approaching a breaking point,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow on the Middle East at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said Wednesday. Mekelberg told NBC News that Trump’s comments make an already fragile situation more unpredictable. "He sends the message that he wants to be the man for peace and every act that he is doing points to exactly the opposite direction," he said, adding that the Israeli government should end "all this pandering to President Trump" at the risk of being "complicit in war crimes and probably destabilizing the Middle East." “I won’t be very surprised if it breaks even before we get to the end of the first phase,” he said, referring to the planned end of the ceasefire's initial stage slated for March 2. While Trump's suggested plan has received broad-based support across Israel's political right wing, the families of hostages being held by Hamas also expressed their distress over the prospect of a breakdown in the ceasefire. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing the families of Israeli hostages, said in a statement Tuesday that “we must not go backward. We cannot allow the hostages to waste away in captivity.” Trump’s comments have also drawn widespread condemnation from the broader Arab world. Speaking at a summit in Dubai on Wednesday, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Trump’s plans to take over Gaza would lead to a new cycle of crises. According to Reuters, he added that “if the situation explodes militarily once more, all this effort will be wasted.” Gheit also said the regional organization planned to reintroduce the Arab Peace Initiative, which was floated in 2002 to normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a statehood deal with Palestinians. Meanwhile, Egypt plans to host an emergency Arab summit Feb. 27 after Trump extended an open invitation to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to discuss the matter the White House.

Hamas said it will indefinitely delay the release of hostages held inside Gaza. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called for the releases to carry on. The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was at risk of faltering Tuesday after President Donald Trump warned “all hell is going to break out” if the Palestinian militant group does not release “all” the remaining hostages this week. The war in the Gaza Strip is on pause following a complex agreement in which the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are incrementally exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel. But Hamas said late Monday that it was indefinitely postponing the next hostage-prisoner swap Saturday, accusing Israel of continuing to shoot at Palestinians, stopping them from moving back to the northern part of the strip and delaying the entry of medical supplies and shelters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held an emergency meeting with his security Cabinet in Jerusalem on Tuesday to discuss how to move forward, an Israeli official briefed on the matter told NBC News. Three more hostages were set to be freed from Gaza in an exchange scheduled for Saturday. But Trump responded to Hamas’ delay by demanding that all 76 remaining captives, 44 of whom are believed to be alive, are freed. “If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock — I think it’s an appropriate time — I would say cancel” the ceasefire, he told reporters, without specifying whether he meant noon or midnight. Asked for specifics about what he meant by “hell,” he said, “Hamas will find out what I mean.” The prospect of resuming a war in which more than 48,000 Gazans have been killed has alarmed international observers, as well as Palestinians in the enclave and the families of the hostages, most of whom were among the 250 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed. “We must avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza that would lead to immense tragedy,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement. “I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages. Both sides must fully abide by their commitments in the ceasefire agreement and resume serious negotiations.” Even before Hamas announced its delay in freeing hostages, confidence in the ceasefire has been shaken by Trump’s repeated statements that he wants to permanently remove Palestinians from Gaza so the United States can develop the war zone as a real estate opportunity. "I would own this — think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land," Trump said Monday, contradicting his own aides, who had said the Palestinians' relocation would be temporary. "We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities," he said, "a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is." That has alarmed many governments and experts, who point out that forcibly removing people from their homes is classed as ethnic cleansing under international law. Trump suggested he could revoke aid for Egypt and Jordan if they continued to refuse to rehome Gaza's 2 million-plus population. “Yeah, maybe, sure why not?” Trump, who met with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Tuesday, said when he was asked about ceasing financial assistance to the two countries. Meanwhile, Hamas’ announcement has led Israel to ramp up its own security measures. Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces “to prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza,” calling Hamas’ statement “a complete violation of the ceasefire agreement.” Trump’s implied threat has drawn support among far-right nationalist lawmakers. Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned last month as Netanyahu’s national security minister, wrote on X, “Trump is right!” adding that it was time to go back to Gaza and “destroy” — apparently referring to Hamas. Many of the hostages’ families, on the other hand, are desperate for the ceasefire to remain intact. “President Trump, I am asking you with all my heart: Do everything in your power to ensure that this deal continues!” said Idit Ohel, the mother of Alon Ohel, who was abducted from Israel’s Nova music festival Oct. 7, 2023. At an event marking her captive son’s 24th birthday Monday, she said she had received the first “proof of life” since he was taken. On Tuesday Netanyahu said in a statement marking the death of another hostage, Shlomo Mantzur, 86, that he would “continue to act with determination and tirelessness until we return all of our abductees — both the living and the dead.” Alexander Smith reported from London and Lawahez Jabari and Yarden Segev from Tel Aviv.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar are mediating the negotiations. CAIRO — An Israel delegation arrived in Qatar on Sunday for more Gaza truce talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson said, as its military withdrew from an important crossing point in the enclave, as agreed under the truce with Hamas. Indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas on the next stage of the ceasefire are set to start this week following Netanyahu’s visit to the United States last week. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprise call for Palestinians to be displaced from Gaza and for the enclave to come under the ownership of the U.S., which would rebuild it. U.S. officials have since walked back some of Trump’s remarks, saying Palestinians could return to Gaza once it was cleared of unexploded ordnance and rebuilt. Still, Trump’s plan was widely panned with some critics saying it amounted to “ethnic cleansing.” Israeli officials have welcomed it. The first stage of the ceasefire which began on January 19 is meant to last six weeks and includes the release by Hamas of 33 Israeli hostages in return for Israel freeing almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners from its jails. Images of three hostages freed on Saturday, looking gaunt and weak, shocked Israelis. “Yesterday we got our father back. He lost much of his weight but not his spirit,” said Yulie Ben Ami, whose father Ohad was freed. “He survived hell.” Withdrawal Washington, Qatar and Egypt mediated the ceasefire, which has largely held. In keeping with the deal, on Sunday the Israeli military completed its withdrawal from its remaining positions in the Netzarim Corridor, which bisects Gaza. Crowds of people were seen traversing the corridor as Hamas announced the Israeli withdrawal, while a long line of cars waited to pass through. An Israeli security source confirmed the military was leaving its positions there. The Hamas-run police force deployed to the area to manage the flow Palestinians crossing through and Reuters footage showed what appeared to be Israeli military vehicles moving away from the coast and towards the Israeli border. Hamas military and police forces have increased their public presence since January’s ceasefire, in what analysts say is an intentional message that the group has not been defeated. Former American soldiers employed as private contractors have been deployed to inspect vehicles passing through the corridor in recent weeks following the ceasefire agreement that was implemented on January 19 after more than 15 months of war. Israel had occupied the roughly 4 mile-long corridor south of Gaza City that stretches from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea. The corridor cut off Gaza’s northern communities, including its largest metropolitan area, from the south. Thousands of Palestinians have streamed through the corridor in recent weeks, returning to their homes in the north from southern Gaza where they had sought shelter from the war. Much of northern Gaza has become a wasteland following Israel’s devastating campaign. After finding their homes destroyed, some Gazans have gone back to the south, while others have set up tents where their homes once stood. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas for its October 2023 attack in which 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 48,000 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory assault, according to Palestinian health authorities, most of them civilians. Gazan medics said that on Sunday four Palestinians, including an elderly woman, had been killed by Israeli gunfire in two separate incidents near Khan Younis and in Gaza City. The Israeli military said soldiers had fired warning shots at “several suspects” and that “several hits were identified,” when asked about the Gaza City incident where medics said three Palestinians had been killed and five wounded. The military was not aware of the incident where the woman was allegedly killed.

The handover of hostages scheduled for Saturday will be postponed until Israel “commits to and compensates for the past weeks retroactively,” a Qassam Brigades spokesman said. Hamas said Monday it was suspending the upcoming hostage release in the Gaza Strip, blaming Israel for not following the terms of a ceasefire agreement that paused the 15-month war in the Palestinian enclave. Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, cited alleged Israeli violations of the deal over the past three weeks, including delaying the return of displaced people to northern Gaza, not allowing aid to enter the enclave, and shelling and gunfire in various areas of the strip. As a result, the handover of hostages scheduled for Saturday “will be postponed until further notice” and until Israel “commits to and compensates for the past weeks retroactively,” Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said via social media. The announcement triggered alarm among families of hostages, with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum appealing for help from countries mediating the next and second stage of the ceasefire. “Recent evidence from those released, as well as the shocking conditions of the hostages released last Saturday, leaves no room for doubt — time is of the essence, and all hostages must be urgently rescued from this horrific situation,” the group said. Over the weekend, at Saturday’s hostage release — the fifth since the ceasefire agreement began Jan. 19 — Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami looked frail and weak. Qatar, the United States and Egypt have helped mediate the talks between Israel and Hamas, with negotiators due to hammer out details of the deal's second phase now. Israeli officials denounced Hamas' announcement, with Defense Minister Israel Katz calling it “a complete violation of the ceasefire agreement.” “I have instructed the IDF to prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza and to protect the communities,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. Opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman called for aid to be cut off to Gaza if Hamas did not release hostages Saturday. “No trucks will enter the Gaza Strip. No food, no water, no electricity, and no fuel,” he said on X. Hundreds of trucks of aid have flowed into the shattered enclave daily since the truce went into effect in January, and any cutoff would have a devastating impact on Palestinian civilians. Hamas' announcement will worsen the uncertainty surrounding the fragile ceasefire, as well as not only the future of the hostages and Palestinian prisoners and detainees who are due to be released in exchange, but also the next steps for the region as a whole. President Donald Trump said Monday night that if all the hostages are not returned by noon Saturday, Israel should "cancel" the ceasefire and that "all hell is going to break out." "If they're not returned, all of them — not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12 o'clock. And after that, I would say all hell is going to break out,” Trump told reporters after signing executive orders in the Oval Office. Asked to elaborate on what that would mean, Trump told reporters, "You'll find out." "They'll find out, too. Hamas will find out what I mean," Trump said. "These are sick people, and they'll find out what I mean Saturday at 12." Trump last week was condemned across the Middle East after he floated a plan for the United States to take control of Gaza — and turn it into "the Riviera of the Middle East.” In an interview with Fox News set to air Monday, he said that under the plan, Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return to their home after the enclave was rebuilt. “We’ll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We’ll build beautiful communities, safe communities — could be five, six, could be two, but we’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said in the Fox interview. After Trump’s initial comments last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Trump was “committed to rebuilding Gaza and to temporarily relocating” Palestinians during those reconstruction efforts. Hamas leader Osama Hamdan on Monday rejected what he called the “Israeli-American vision” for Palestinians, condemning Trump’s statements about Gaza, saying they revealed “his real estate view of homelands.” Hamdan doubled down on the decision to postpone the handover of Israeli hostages, saying it “came as a result of the occupation’s disruption of 90% of the humanitarian protocol.” According to local health officials, close to 48,000 people have died in the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack in which Israeli officials say 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

The president expanded on his plan for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, suggesting he would build a permanent home for them elsewhere. President Donald Trump said Palestinians wouldn't be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to take ownership of the war-torn territory. In a taped interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, a clip of which was released Monday, Trump was asked about his proposal to "own" and rebuild Gaza, first announced last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House. "We'll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities — could be five, six, could be two, but we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is," Trump said in the interview, a portion of which aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday. More clips from the interview will air Monday night. Trump continued, "In the meantime, I would own this — think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land." Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to the land, Trump said, "No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing, much better." During his initial announcement last week, Trump said that Palestinians and “many people” would be able to live in Gaza after the U.S. took ownership of it. He said, “I envision the world people living there, the world’s people. You’ll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable,” and it could be “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump told Baier he wants to build a permanent residence for the millions of Palestinians currently living in Gaza, which he said is not currently habitable after the 16-month-long war between Hamas and Israel. “I’m talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” he said, implying that he could try to build a permanent home for Palestinians in those two Arab countries. The feasibility of this plan is unclear: Hamas, which governs the region, has said it will not turn over control. Officials from Egypt and Jordan have also repeatedly refused to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza, arguing that the transfer of large numbers of refugees into their countries could risk the conflict expanding even further across the region. While speaking to reporters Monday night, Trump said threatened to withhold U.S. aid for Egypt and Jordan if they refused to take in Palestinians under his plan for Gaza. "If they don't agree, I would. I would conceivably withhold aid," Trump said. The president's plan drew swift backlash around the globe, in particular from close U.S. allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (which Israel has been seeking to normalize ties with.) Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' special rapporteur for the occupied territories, said on X that Trump's proposal is "nonsense" but "must be taken very seriously." "President Trump has basically declared his intention to commit the int’l crime of forced displacement and resort to unlawful use of force against the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, in violation of the UN Charter — amounting to aggression," she wrote. "The 191 members of the UN who still have an interest in protecting themselves from this madness, better recover from their paralysis and stand united against this imperialist lawlessness." The majority of U.N. members support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Trump's plan would violate. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that Palestinians "must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.” The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Previous U.S. administrations under both Republican and Democratic presidents have supported proposals for a two-state solution in which Palestinians would be able to create their own sovereign state, but that has been rejected by key members of the Trump administration. Trump’s current nominee for the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has said that a Palestinian state is very unlikely under Trump. The president’s former ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman, has also expressed opposition to a two-state solution. Friedman had supported efforts by Israel to operate settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Democratic administrations have rejected. During his first term, Trump changed U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Those moves and the settlements have long been viewed as obstacles in the peace process.

The truce has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, which appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal’s second phase. Israeli forces were withdrawing from a key corridor that bisects the Gaza Strip on Sunday as part of Israel’s commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas. “We are preparing to implement the agreement regarding Netzarim axis,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The truce, however, faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension amid external pressures, including President Donald Trump’s controversial Gaza relocation plan, and tensions between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel had agreed to remove its forces from the 4-mile Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that divides northern Gaza from the south, which Israel has used as a military zone during the war. At the start of the ceasefire last month, the Israeli military began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north, sending hundreds of thousands streaming across Gaza on foot and by car. On Sunday, cars heaped with belongings, including water tanks and suitcases, headed north on a road that crosses Netzarim. Under the ceasefire deal, Israel is supposed to allow the cars to cross through uninspected, and there did not appear to be troops in the vicinity of the road, The Associated Press reported. Withdrawing forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal, which paused the 15-month war. Troops remain along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, and a full withdrawal is expected to be negotiated in a later stage of the truce. But the ceasefire is fragile, and its extension is not guaranteed. It has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, which appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal’s second phase meant to extend the truce and lead to the release of more Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The truce also faces many external challenges, including Trump’s proposal to relocate the population of Gaza and take ownership of the Palestinian territory. Israel has expressed openness to the idea, while Hamas, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world have rejected it outright. Tensions flared again Sunday when Saudi Arabia condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark that Palestinians could establish a state in Saudi Arabia, citing the country’s large size. Netanyahu’s comments, made in a Channel 14 interview last week, sparked backlash and further strained relations between the two nations, which before the war had appeared to have been moving toward a landmark normalization agreement. Saudi Arabia said his remarks “aim to divert attention from the successive crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.” Qatar, a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, also condemned the comments Sunday, describing them as “provocative.” The United Arab Emirates, which reached a diplomatic recognition deal with Israel in 2020, also condemned Netanyahu’s remarks late Saturday. While Trump’s plan is saddled with moral, legal and practical obstacles, it may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic to try to ratchet up pressure on Hamas or as an opening gambit in a bargaining process aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s response to Netanyahu’s comments would appear to have rattled such a plan. At home, Netanyahu is also under heavy pressure from his far-right political allies to resume the war after the first phase so that Hamas, which carried out the deadliest attack on Israelis in their history, can be defeated. He faces pressure from Israelis who are eager to see more hostages return home, especially after the gaunt appearances of the three male captives freed Saturday stunned the nation. Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is also expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal. According to local health officials, close to 48,000 people have died in the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

The 90-day funding freeze was being “felt all over” by humanitarian organizations working on the ground, a spokesperson for Refugees International told NBC News. Aid agencies are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump’s mission to upend the U.S. Agency for International Development, which they say is already hampering efforts to provide assistance to Palestinians reeling from 15 months of war in Gaza. Medical supplies, food deliveries and other vital humanitarian supplies were already being held up in other parts of the world by the administration’s 90-day freeze on all foreign aid, and humanitarian organizations are warning that the situation in Gaza could become even more dire if there is a similar delay there The pause was being “felt all over” by humanitarian organizations working on the ground, said Jesse Marks, the senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International, a Washington based nonprofit. USAID has been a major funder of support for Palestinians in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In a November news release, the agency said it had invested over $600 million in economic support funding for Palestinians since 2021. This was in addition to over $1.2 billion dedicated to humanitarian assistance for Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched multipronged attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage, marking a major escalation in the conflict. More than 47,000 people have died in the enclave since then, although researchers have estimated that the death toll is likely much higher. USAID also announced in November that it planned to dedicate $230 million in additional funding to support economic recovery and development programs in Gaza and the West Bank. That same month, Amy Tohill-Stull, director of USAID’s West Bank and Gaza mission, said in a statement that the U.S. commitment to the Palestinian people remained “steadfast.” But the agency’s future is now deeply uncertain after Trump, in one of his first acts in office last month, paused development assistance from USAID for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, dubbed a “special government employee” by the White House, also said Monday that he and Trump were in the process of shutting it down. Trump has since suggested that the U.S. should seek ownership of Gaza. Having made conflicting comments Tuesday on whether Palestinians would be able to stay in the enclave under such a proposal, on Thursday he suggested they could live in “far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” After the State Department took control of USAID this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News the move was “not about getting rid of foreign aid,” but that reforming the United States’ international aid programming could be necessary. The White House decision came days after an Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees came into effect in a move that the world body warned will jeopardize humanitarian aid efforts in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Trump administration has also vowed to extend a suspension on UNRWA funding brought in by its predecessors after Israel accused workers with the agency of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to be Israel’s biggest arms provider. Washington spent at least $17.9 billion on military aid for Israel in the first year of Israeli forces’ deadly offensive in Gaza, according to a November report for Brown University’s Costs of War project. On the ground, the pause in USAID funding was already having tangible effects, agencies warned. The day after Trump signed his executive order, the International Medical Corps also warned that it could soon have to halt lifesaving medical support in the enclave if a stop-work order remains in place. The global nonprofit, which said it had received $68 million from USAID in support of its operations since Oct. 7, 2023, has used the funding to operate two large field hospitals in central Gaza, including one in the city of Deir al-Balah and another in the nearby town of Al Zawaida. “These facilities provide 24/7 lifesaving medical care to roughly 33,000 civilians per month, in a highly dangerous and insecure environment where healthcare infrastructure has been decimated,” the organization said in a statement late last month. It also warned that if the stop-work order remained in place, it would be unable to continue those efforts beyond this week or so. Asked by NBC News whether that was still the case on Wednesday, the IMC declined to comment on the record. Over the weekend, IMC updated its website to state that the U.S. government had provided funding to cover hospital services through at least mid-April. It did not expand further. As of Friday, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said she had not seen major impacts of the USAID cuts on the ground in northern Gaza, but she said, “that doesn’t mean they’re not happening” there or elsewhere. And she warned that the brief moment of relative stability afforded in Gaza under the current ceasefire underway was fragile as aid organizations on the ground look to provide vital services and supplies to families amid the pause in fighting. Oxfam America President and CEO Abby Maxman also cautioned in a statement Saturday that “dismantling USAID would be a callous, destructive political power play that would have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty.” “By dismissing almost all USAID staff, the Trump administration is recklessly throwing away decades of critical experience and expertise in the global fight against poverty, hunger, disease and inequality,” she said.

The Israeli military said the reservist admitted to having “severely abused” Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention center near the border with the Gaza Strip. JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier who was found to have struck Palestinian detainees while they were restrained and blindfolded has been sentenced to seven months in jail by an Israeli military court. The Israeli military on Thursday announced the court had accepted a plea agreement with the soldier, a reservist who it said admitted to having “severely abused” Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention center near the border with the Gaza Strip. “The defendant was convicted of several incidents in which he struck detainees with his fists and his weapon while they were bound and blindfolded,” the military said. It did not name the soldier or detail the charges he was convicted of. The military statement did not identify where the Palestinian detainees were from, why they had been detained or whether they had since been charged with or convicted of crimes or released from detention. In addition to seven months’ imprisonment, the court handed the soldier a suspended sentence and demoted him to the rank of private. The military said the soldier had served as a security guard at the detention center but did not say what rank he had held. Israeli media reported the soldier’s jail sentence included time that he had already spent in detention. The military court found that other masked soldiers had participated in the abuse but that their identities had not been determined, the military said, without saying how many. The convicted soldier had beaten the detainees in front of other soldiers, some of whom had told him to stop, the military said, adding that a recording of the abuse had been found on the mobile phone of the convicted soldier. The military has been investigating allegations that soldiers had abused Palestinians from Gaza held in military detention since the start of the war in October 2023. The military on Thursday did not say whether investigations were still ongoing or if any other soldiers had been charged. In July last year, right-wing Israeli protesters broke into the Sde Teiman detention facility and another Israeli military compound after investigators arrived to question soldiers about suspected abuse. Sde Teiman was opened after the war started and held captured Palestinians from Gaza. Israel said last year that it would close the facility.

“This kind of language only is going to galvanize groups that want to kill Americans,” said former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos. President Donald Trump’s calls for the United States to “take over” and “develop” the Gaza Strip have handed jihadist terrorist groups a rallying cry to recruit and inspire attacks against Americans at home and abroad, security experts and former intelligence officials say. Trump’s comments this week, proposing that the United States would control the Palestinian enclave while its residents would be forced to relocate abroad, have caused shock and outrage around the world — and terrorists will pounce on that anger to attract more support and organize attacks, experts said. “I think every CIA station chief in the Middle East woke up this morning with a migraine headache, because there’s a potential for a generational counterterrorism nightmare here,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who worked in the region, said Wednesday in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Polymeropoulos highlighted the language Trump has used in recent days — that the United States would "take over" and "own" Gaza. “These are triggering mechanisms for Islamic extremist groups,” he said, adding, “This kind of language only is going to galvanize groups that want to kill Americans." U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have repeatedly warned in recent months of a heightened global terrorist threat, mainly due to the fallout from the 15-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israel launched an invasion of Gaza after Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in the enclave, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Islamic State and other jihadist extremists have seized on the Gaza conflict and the suffering of Palestinian civilians as material for propaganda and to encourage attacks on governments painted as enemies of Muslims, said Lucas Webber, senior threat analyst at Tech Against Terrorists, a nonprofit organization. “This most recent development will hypercharge these existing trends and provide fodder for the Islamic State to tap into it and leverage it to build support, empower its rhetoric, recruit and even incite violence,” Webber said. Pro-ISIS propagandists have already started to highlight Trump’s comments on social media, portraying his language as a vindication of their labeling the United States as an enemy of Muslims, according to Webber. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called Trump’s remarks “literally bulletin board recruiting material today for our terrorist enemies, whether or not we ever go into Gaza.” “The idea that we’re going to clear Gaza out of Palestinians, that drives young men to extremist groups, to violence, to groups that are based around violence,” Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The White House has defended Trump’s comments, saying he has shown a willingness to question conventional wisdom about the Middle East and scored a breakthrough in his first term by securing an agreement between Israel and four Arab countries to establish diplomatic ties. Brian Hughes, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the same lawmakers and former officials now criticizing the president once “claimed the Middle East would devolve into violence after President Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or recognized the Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.” “The truth is President Trump is the only president to broker a peace agreement between four Muslim-majority countries and Israel," Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in an email. "He’s the only modern-day president to have a record of success in the Middle East." Both Murphy and Polymeropoulos previously sharply criticized Trump’s decision in his first term to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, warning of possible violence or potential damage to relations with Arab allies. Trump has defended his remarks on Gaza and renewed his calls for a U.S. takeover, though he said Thursday it would not involve American boots on the ground. In past decades, suicide terrorist attacks have spiked in response to the U.S. or other foreign militaries’ occupying, or being perceived to be occupying, territory that terrorists see as their homeland, according to research by Robert Pape, a professor of international relations at the University of Chicago. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation touched off “the largest suicide terrorist campaign in modern times,” said Pape, who has compiled a database of thousands of suicide attacks worldwide. As the United States has scaled back its military footprint in the Middle East, the relative terrorist threat against it has receded since the U.S. war in Iraq, he said. But Trump’s vow to exert U.S. authority over Gaza gives groups like ISIS a major boost and puts Americans in the crosshairs, Pape said. “It’s really been quite some time since they’ve had this shot of energy,” he said. “A group like Al Qaeda has been desperate for something like this.” Jihadist militants will most likely try to organize terrorist attacks against U.S. targets to signal to Washington that they will not tolerate a possible U.S. occupation, he said. “They will start attacking Americans to deter us from starting down this road again,” Pape said. Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI official who worked on counterterrorism cases, said Trump’s language could prompt Palestinian militants to focus on targeting Americans abroad and possibly inside the United States, something not seen since the 1970s and ’80s. And jihadist extremists will seize on his words to stoke anger and paint a picture of the United States as a foreign occupier, he said. “Global jihadist groups will also use a narrative of the United States occupying Arab lands as a rallying cry for new recruits,” said O’Leary, senior vice president at the Soufan Group, a global security consultancy. O’Leary and other former government officials said Trump’s statements were especially worrying as they coincide with a time of uncertainty and upheaval at U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In recent days the Trump administration has launched a review of the conduct of FBI agents who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol, and it is seeking to drastically reduce the federal workforce by offering so-called buyouts to employees at the FBI, the CIA and elsewhere. “The addition of the Gaza announcement coupled with the erosion of our security services could really elevate the terrorist threat,” O’Leary said. Trump’s proposal to take control of Gaza — and potentially expel the roughly 2.2 million Palestinians living there — has sparked fury and confusion in the Middle East and around the world. Many foreign government officials, regional analysts and human rights groups say his plan amounts to ethnic cleansing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sought to play down and walk back his comments Wednesday. But Trump doubled down Thursday, defending his proposal and saying the United States could take over Gaza without needing to send U.S. troops. Trump said on Truth Social that Palestinians could be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” His contradictory comments added fresh confusion about the future of Palestinians in Gaza. Even if Trump renounces his comments or never follows through on his ideas about U.S. control of Gaza, jihadist militants now believe the United States — which has already invaded one Muslim country in the Middle East — has its sights set on the Gaza Strip, Pape and other analysts said. The damage has been done, Pape said. “We’re not getting ourselves out of this by somehow spinning the facts.”