President Donald Trump urged Israel on Friday to immediately stop bombing Gaza after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a U.S. plan to end the war, but vexing issues like disarmament appeared unresolved.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel was preparing for an “immediate implementation” of the first stage of Trump’s Gaza plan for the release of Israeli hostages following Hamas’ response.

Shortly after, Israeli media reported that the country’s political echelon had instructed the military to reduce offensive activity in Gaza.

Trump said he believed Hamas had shown it was “ready for a lasting PEACE” and he put the onus on Netanyahu’s government.

“Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

”We are already in discussions on the details to be worked out.

This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will continue to work in full cooperation with the President and his team to end the war in accordance with the principles set out by Israel, which align with President Trump’s vision.”

BOMBING REPORTED AFTER TRUMP ANNOUNCEMENT

As Trump urged Israel to halt bombing, Residents said Israeli tanks bombarded Talateeni Street, a major artery in the heart of Gaza City, after Trump’s message to Israel to stop.

Witnesses said Israeli military planes also intensified bombing in Gaza City in the hour after Hamas issued its statement, hitting several houses in the Remal neighborhood.

The Israeli military chief of staff instructed forces in a statement to advance readiness for the implementation of the first phase of Trump’s plan, without mentioning whether there would be a reduction of military activity in Gaza.

Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, responded to Trump’s 20-point plan after the U.S. president gave the group until Sunday to accept or face grave consequences.

Trump, who has cast himself as the only person capable of achieving peace in Gaza, has invested significant political capital in efforts to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and left U.S. ally Israel increasingly isolated on the world stage.

Hamas response

Hamas said it was ready to release hostages held in Gaza under a peace deal proposed by Donald Trump but wanted negotiations on the details and a say in the future of the Palestinian territory.

“The movement announces its approval for the release of all hostages — living and remains — according to the exchange formula included in President Trump’s proposal,” Hamas said in a statement, adding it was ready to enter talks “to discuss the details”.

The peace plan for Gaza, presented by Trump this week and backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for a ceasefire, the release of hostages within 72 hours, Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

In the statement, Hamas said it agreed to hand over power in Gaza to a body of Palestinian technocrats but said decisions on the territory’s long-term future would need to be discussed within a Palestinian framework “in which Hamas will participate and contribute responsibly”.

Hamas’s statement made no mention of its intentions on disarmament, a key part of the US president’s plan and a move the group has previously resisted.

Following the announcement, Mahmoud Mardawi, a senior Hamas official, told AFP the group welcomed Trump’s proposal, but that “without clear terms, criteria, and transparency, we need clarification and confirmation through a negotiated agreement”.

“The American proposal is vague, ambiguous, and lacks clarity,” Mardawi said.

Hamas had “made our position clear, and we are now waiting to see how the details of the terms will be implemented and clarified”, he added.

Gazans reaction

An AFP journalist in the Gaza Strip’s coastal area of Al-Mawasi said they heard celebratory cries of “Allahu akbar!” (God is the greatest) rise from tents housing Palestinians as news of Hamas’s response filtered through.

“The moment I read the news… my body trembled and shivered. A feeling came over me, like. ‘Oh Allah, at last relief has come to us,’” Samah Al-Hu, a displaced Palestinian in Al-Mawasi, said.

Mohammad Abu Hatab, a Palestinian in Gaza City, said he was “very happy with Hamas’s positive response and its opening of the door to new negotiations”.

“We hope, with the efforts of mediators, that the war is completely halted and our joy is fulfilled,” he told AFP.

Trump hailed the developments as a “very special day”, adding in a brief video that all sides in any Gaza talks would be “treated fairly”.

In that statement, Hamas also agreed to hand over power in Gaza to technocrats but said it would “participate and contribute responsibly” in Palestinian discussions regarding the territory’s future.

• Trump freezes at least $28bn in funds for Democratic areas. 
• Pritzker says that amounts to hostage taking. 
• Bid to reopen government fails in Senate as both sides dig in. 

US President Donald Trump’s administration froze $2.1 billion in Chicago transit funding on Friday, starving another Democratic city of funds as a bid to end the government shutdown failed again in the Senate.

On the shutdown’s third day, Trump ramped up pressure on Democrats to end the standoff and agree to a Republican plan that would restore government funding. But that failed in a 54-44 Senate vote, short of the chamber’s 60-vote standard, ensuring that the shutdown will last until at least Monday.

The administration has now frozen at least $28 billion in funding for Democratic cities and states, escalating Trump’s campaign to use the extraordinary power of the US government to punish political rivals. Budget director Russ Vought said the Chicago money, earmarked for elevated train lines, had been put on hold to ensure it was not “flowing via race-based contracting.”

Trump has made Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, a regular rhetorical punching bag and has threatened to send in National Guard troops.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a high-profile Trump critic seen as a possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, said the funding freeze amounted to hostage-taking.

“It’s attempting to score political points but is instead hurting our economy and the hardworking people who rely on public transit,” he said on social media.

The White House said it was also identifying funds that could be withheld from Portland, Oregon, a left-leaning city that was home to high-profile protests during Trump’s first term.

Trump has also threatened to fire more federal workers, beyond the 300,000 he is forcing out this year, and dozens of agencies have submitted workforce reduction plans, according to a White House source speaking on condition of anonymity.

Concern about ‘bad-faith environment’

Many Republicans say they are not troubled by Trump’s pressure campaign, even though it undercuts Congress’ constitutional authority over spending matters. In addition to cutting funds to Democratic cities, Trump and his allies have taken to posting social media images with cartoon mustaches and sombreros drawn on his Democratic opponents.

“Is he trying to apply pressure?” House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters. “He probably is, yeah. And I applaud that.”

But others say the cuts are complicating efforts to reach a deal that would allow the government to reopen. “If you do that, you’re going to create a bad-faith environment here,” said Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who is involved in informal talks to end the impasse. Tillis has opted not to seek re-election next year.

Trump’s funding freeze so far has targeted transit and green-energy projects, two areas that are championed by Democrats. His administration has also tried to cut counterterrorism funding for Democratic states, which is typically a Republican priority. That has been temporarily blocked in court, and Trump restored $187 million in funding for New York on Friday.

No sign of swift solution

In Washington, the Senate rejected both the Republican funding plan and a Democratic alternative and then adjourned until Monday. The House of Representatives will be out of town all next week, which means it would not be available to vote on any compromise that emerges from the Senate.

If the shutdown stretches past Monday, it will become the fourth-longest in US history. The longest shutdown lasted 35 days in 2018-2019, during Trump’s first term in office.

Trump’s pressure campaign did not appear to sway Democrats. Only three voted for the Republican plan, which would extend funding through November 21, the same number who backed it in earlier votes.

Democrats say any funding package must also expand pandemic-era healthcare subsidies due to expire at the end of December, while Republicans say that issue should be dealt with separately. Those subsidies were passed as part of a 2021 Democratic COVID relief package and now help 24 million Americans pay for coverage. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support keeping them in place, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

The standoff has frozen about $1.7 trillion in funds for agency operations, which amounts to roughly one-quarter of annual federal spending. Much of the remainder goes to health and retirement programs and interest payments on the growing $37.5 trillion debt.

Services interrupted

The shutdown, the 15th since 1981, has suspended scientific research, financial regulation, and a wide range of other activities. Pay has been suspended for roughly 2 million federal workers, though troops, airport security screeners, and others deemed “essential” must still report to work.

On Friday, the government did not release its monthly unemployment report, leaving Wall Street guessing about the health of the world’s largest economy.

A prolonged shutdown could disrupt air travel and food aid for millions of Americans, and also force federal courts to close. Federal workers would miss their first paycheck in mid-October if the standoff is not resolved by then.

• 1st Circuit upholds nationwide injunction blocking policy.
• 9th Circuit similarly held Trump’s order is unconstitutional.
• Trump administration wants Supreme Court to decide the issue.

President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail birthright citizenship was declared unconstitutional by a second US appeals court on Friday, handing him another defeat on a core piece of his hardline immigration agenda whose ultimate fate may lie with the US Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld injunctions won by Democratic-led states and immigrant rights advocates that have stopped the Republican president’s executive order from taking effect nationwide.

Trump’s order, issued on his first day back in office on January 20, directs agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of US-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also known as a “green card” holder.

US Circuit Judge David Barron said Trump’s order violated the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen. He said the length of the court’s 100-page ruling should not be mistaken for a sign that the fundamental question was difficult.

“It is not, which may explain why it has been more than a century since a branch of our government has made as concerted an effort as the Executive Branch now makes to deny Americans their birthright,” Barron wrote in an opinion joined by two judges similarly appointed by Democratic presidents

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the court had misinterpreted the 14th Amendment.

“We look forward to being vindicated by the Supreme Court,” she said in a statement.

The 1st Circuit was reviewing rulings by US District Judges Leo Sorokin in Boston and Joseph Laplante in Concord, New Hampshire, who earlier this year in separate cases blocked Trump’s order from being implemented.

The 1st Circuit’s decision came after another appeals court, the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in July similarly upheld a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s order from taking effect on the grounds that it violated the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

The administration last week asked the US Supreme Court to hear its appeal in that case and a related one. If the Supreme Court agrees, it would mark the second time the litigation is before the high court, after its 6-3 conservative majority in June limited the power of judges to block that and other actions by Trump on a nationwide basis.

The Supreme Court at that time did not weigh in on the validity of Trump’s birthright citizenship order. But in three cases where judges had declared it unconstitutional, the court limited the ability of judges to issue so-called universal injunctions and directed lower courts that had blocked Trump’s policy nationally to reconsider the scope of their orders.

The Supreme Court’s ruling opened the door to Trump’s order taking effect in parts of the country. Yet judges have repeatedly since then kept blocking it nationwide.

Those judges include Sorokin, who reaffirmed his original decision to halt the policy nationwide, and Laplante, who issued a new injunction in a newly-filed nationwide class action, a vehicle the Supreme Court’s ruling suggested was permissible.