Trump says Hamas is ready for peace, says ‘Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza’
Donald Trump just welcomed the response from Hamas to his peace plan, without worrying about the parts of it that the Palestinian movement said need to be negotiated further, and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza “immediately” in a social media post that was shared by the White House.
Trump, who is eager for a Nobel peace prize and appears ready to declare victory, wrote:
Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our lives coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back soon. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump enthusiastically welcomed what he called a positive Hamas response to the peace plan for Gaza he unveiled this week, saying that the Palestinian group is ready for peace. “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza,” Trump added.
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A group representing many families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza has released a statement supporting Donald Trump’s call for Israel to stop bombing Gaza immediately.
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The US supreme court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants.
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In a brief statement read from a teleprompter in the Oval Office that sounded at times like an acceptance speech for an award, Trump said the Hamas response means “peace in the Middle East” is “very close”.
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A senior national security prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia said in a farewell note taped to his door that he was apparently fired this week because a January 6 conspiracy theorist denounced him on social media.
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A federal judge in Portland said at the end of a hearing on Friday that she will act quickly to decide whether or not to grant the state of Oregon’s request to block the deployment of 200 national guard troops to the city.
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Portland’s district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, told the court that “the deployment of federal personnel not trained in local policing to the streets of Portland risks creating, not mitigating, the very conditions it is alleged to target.”
Judge expected to rule soon on Oregon’s request to block national guard deployment
A federal judge in Portland said at the end of a hearing on Friday that she will act quickly to decide whether or not to grant the state of Oregon’s request to block the deployment of 200 national guard troops to the city.
At a hearing in the federal courthouse in downtown Portland that was the scene of mass protests in 2020, but is now peaceful, US district Judge Karin Immergut said that she expects to issue a ruling late Friday or Saturday.
Oregon’s lawsuit argues that Donald Trump’s characterization of the city as “war ravaged” is “pure fiction”. Trump’s action, in asserting federal control of the state’s national guard troops, is clearly “unlawful”, Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, said earlier this week, given that it was not taken in response to a foreign invasion or mass anarchy, but one small protest by dozens of activists outside a single Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Portland.
The judge, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, was assigned to the case just one day earlier after the Trump administration successfully pressured a previous judge to recuse himself since his wife, congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici, has been an outspoken opponent of the deployment.
As Taylor Griggs, a reporter for the Portland Mercury, points out, the state submitted testimony in the form of an email from a Portland Police Bureau sergeant, Andrew Braun, on 21 September in which he described the role that three right-wing “counter-protestors”, Rhein Amacher, Chelly Bouferrache and Katie Daviscourt, all conservative influencers, played in instigating conflict outside the Ice office.
“Despite repeated advice from officers to stay away from the ICE crowd, they constantly return and antagonize the protesters until they are assaulted or pepper-sprayed. They refuse or are reluctant to walk away from these confrontations,” Braun wrote. “They even engage in the same trespassing behavior on federal and trolly property as the main protesters. Aside from the confrontations between opposing protesters, there was no reported activity around ICE that would have otherwise generated a police response.”
Declarations submitted to the court in Oregon v Trump also included one from the city’s district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, a former Republican who defeated the progressive incumbent prosecutor last year. Vasquez, who has extensive experience in prosecuting crimes related to protests in the past, wrote: “I believe based on my personal experience on the ground in the 2020 unrest that the deployment of federal personnel not trained in local policing to the streets of Portland risks creating, not mitigating, the very conditions it is alleged to target.”
Federal prosecutor says he was fired after complaint from January 6 conspiracy theorist on social media
A senior national security prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia said in a farewell note taped to his door on Friday that he was apparently fired this week because a January 6 conspiracy theorist denounced him on social media for having worked for the deputy attorney general in the Biden administration.
The veteran federal prosecutor, Michael Ben’Ary, was fired on Wednesday, the same day that Julie Kelly, a pro-Trump commentator who once called a Capitol police officer beaten by the pro-Trump mob on January 6 a “crisis actor”, suggested on social media that Ben’Ary was an ally of his former boss, Lisa Monaco, a senior justice department official who helped drive the investigation of Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol riot.
“It appears that my termination was based on little more than a single social media post containing false information,” Ben’Ary wrote to his colleagues. “The leadership is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security.”
“I am troubled that I was removed so abruptly in the middle of important work,” Ben’Ary wrote, making specific mention of his role in the prosecution of a suspected member of the Islamic State’s Afghan branch for planning the deadly suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate entrance to the Kabul airport during the US withdrawal in 2021 that killed 13 American service members and scores of Afghan civilians.
When charges against the suspected orchestrator of the attack were announced in March by then interim US attorney Erik Siebert, the two assistant US attorneys named to lead the prosecution were Ben’Ary and Troy Edwards. All three career prosecutors are now gone for political reasons.
Siebert was forced out by Donald Trump for declining to bring charges against James Comey, citing a lack of evidence that the former FBI director committed any crime. Edwards, a national security prosecutor and Comey’s son-in-law, resigned after the former Trump aide installed to take Siebert’s place brought charges against Comey anyway. On Wednesday, Ben’Ary was informed in writing that he had been terminated with immediate effect, shortly after Kelly made a conspiratorial post about him.
“Justice for Americans killed and injured by our enemies should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed that day,” Ben’Ary wrote.
In January, the day after Trump returned to office and pardoned all of the Capitol rioters, including those who had attacked police officers, Charlie Kirk revealed on his podcast that Kelly had helped him convince Trump to issues those pardons in a phone call days before Trump’s second inauguration.
Trump says Hamas response to peace plan means ‘peace in the Middle East’ is ‘very close’
In a brief statement read from a teleprompter in the Oval Office that sounded at times like an acceptance speech for an award, Donald Trump said the Hamas response to the peace plan he put forward this week means “peace in the Middle East” is “very close”.
“I want to thank the countries that helped me put this together: Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and so many others,” Trump began, speaking with his hands clasped on the desk in front of him, covering the back of his right hand, which has been bruised for some time, with his left throughout the 70-second video.
“This is a big day, we’ll see how it all turns out,” the president said, mixing optimism and uncertainty. “We have to get the final… word… down, in concrete,” he added, enunciating awkwardly, before what appeared to be an edit to the video, as the president moved on abruptly to saying that he looks forward to “having the hostages come home.”
“I just want to let you know that this is a very special day, maybe unprecedented in many ways, it is unprecedented,” Trump continued.
He then returned to doling out thanks. “But thank you all, and thank you all to those great countries that helped. We were given a tremendous amount of help. Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end and seeing peace in the Middle East, and we’re very close to achieving that.”
“Thank you all,” he repeated, “and everybody will be treated fairly.”
Supreme court allows Trump to strip TPS from Venezuelans
The US supreme court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.
The justices issued an emergency order, which will last as long as the court case continues, putting on hold a lower-court ruling by US district judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans. The three justices nominated by Democratic presidents dissented.
The administration has moved to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.
In May, the supreme court reversed a preliminary order from Chen that affected another 350,000 Venezuelans whose protections expired in April. The high court provided no explanation at the time, which is common in emergency appeals.
“The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here,” the court wrote Friday in an unsigned order.
Some migrants have lost their jobs and homes while others have been detained and deported after the justices stepped in the first time, lawyers for the migrants told the court.
“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. “Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife or other dangerous conditions. The designation can be granted by the homeland security secretary.
Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza back Trump’s demand to end the war
A group representing many families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza has released a statement supporting Donald Trump’s call for Israel to stop bombing Gaza immediately.
The group says:
The Hostages Families Forum stands firmly with President Trump in his commitment to bring home all the hostages and end the war. President Trump’s demand to stop the war immediately is essential to prevent serious and irreversible harm to the hostages. We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu to immediately begin efficient and swift negotiations to bring all our hostages home.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, has apparently sided with Benjamin Netanyahu over Donald Trump, by casting the Hamas response as “a rejection” of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.
Graham posted:
Hamas’ recent response to President Trump’s plan to end the war — which Israel had accepted — is unfortunately predictable. A classic “Yes, but.” No disarmament, keeping Gaza under Palestinian control, and tying hostage release to negotiations, along with other problems. This is, in essence, a rejection by Hamas of President Trump’s “take it or leave it” proposal.
Qatar frames Hamas response as ‘its agreement to President Trump’s plan’
Amid reports from Israel that Donald Trump ignored objections from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he decided to treat the conditional response from Hamas to his peace plan for Gaza as a yes, a Qatari government spokesman has framed the Hamas response the same way.
“The State of Qatar welcomes the announcement by Hamas of its agreement to President Trump’s plan, and its readiness to release all hostages as part of the exchange framework outlined in the plan,” the statement from Majed Al Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, begins.
It continues:
We also affirm our support for the statements made by the President calling for an immediate ceasefire to facilitate the safe and swift release of hostages, and to achieve rapid results that would put an end to the bloodshed of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, the State of Qatar affirms that it has begun working with its partners in the mediation the Arab Republic of Egypt, in coordination with the United States of America, to continue discussions on the plan in order to ensure a path toward ending the war.
According to the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Netanyahu told Trump after the Hamas response was received, but before Trump welcomed it, that he sees it as a rejection of Trump’s plan, not an acceptance.
If Ravid’s reporting is accurate, Trump’s statement welcoming the Hamas response could be an attempt to box in the Israeli prime minister.
For decades, Netanyahu has managed to successfully resist that sort of pressure from American presidents. After his first meeting with Bill Clinton in 1996, Clinton reportedly raged to aides, “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?”
Israeli opposition leader tells Trump he would support Netanyahu government to close Gaza peace deal
Yair Lapid, the former television anchor who leads Israel’s main opposition party, says that he has informed the White House that his party will support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to close a peace deal in Gaza. The opposition’s support would be necessary to keep Netanyahu in power should far-right ministers in the governing coalition who want to continue the war withdraw from the government.
“President Trump,” Lapid posted, “is right that there is a genuine opportunity to release the hostages and end the war. Israel should announce it is joining the discussions led by the president to finalize the details of the deal. I have told the US administration that Netanyahu has political backing at home to continue the process.”
“Obviously, Netanyahu needs Lapid’s support like a fish needs a bicycle,” observes Dimi Reider, a founder of the bi-national Israeli-Palestinian news site +972 and a fellow at the Othering and Belonging Institute at Berkeley. “Only way he takes it is under extremely direct duress from Trump,” Reider adds, of if a deal with Lapid is packaged with a preemptive pardon from Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to let Netanyahu escape corruption charges.
Egypt welcomes Hamas response to Trump plan for end to war in Gaza
In a statement posted on social media, the Egyptian government, which has played a central role in negotiations with Hamas, has welcomed the Palestinian movement’s response to the plan announced this week by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
The statement thanks Trump for his vision to achieve peace and stability in the region, his “complete rejection” of the annexation of the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Israel or the displacement of the Palestinian people from their lands.
Trump says Hamas is ready for peace, says ‘Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza’
Donald Trump just welcomed the response from Hamas to his peace plan, without worrying about the parts of it that the Palestinian movement said need to be negotiated further, and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza “immediately” in a social media post that was shared by the White House.
Trump, who is eager for a Nobel peace prize and appears ready to declare victory, wrote:
Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.
White House releases full text of Hamas response to Trump’s proposal
Donald Trump has posted the full text of the Hamas statement in response to his proposed plan to end the war in Gaza on his social media platform.
The White House initially posted the text on X as well, but that post was removed without explanation, forcing anyone who wants to read it to visit the president’s own platform.
Gregg Carlstrom of the Economist kept a screenshot of the now-deleted White House post.
Guessing this is the first time ever the White House approvingly posted a statement from Hamas…
… and mistakenly attributed it to the president pic.twitter.com/MikRaaYhAc
— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) October 3, 2025
Trump records Oval Office response to Hamas
Donald Trump has just recorded an Oval Office video in response to what his White House press secretary calls “Hamas’ acceptance of his Peace Plan.”
While the Hamas response to the Trump plan for an end to the war in Gaza signals a willingness to had over governance of the territory, it specifically says that the new government should be made up of Palestinian technocrats, not a foreign-run “board of peace” overseen by the US president.
A few hours ago, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who rules over isolated sections of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, announced that Palestinian officials were drafting a temporary constitution for the state of Palestine, which includes Gaza, to be ready within three months.
“We reaffirm our commitment to holding general presidential and parliamentary elections within one year after the end of the war,” Abbas said, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Abbas has not stood for election since 2005, and there have been no elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, when Hamas won a majority of seats in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2007, power-sharing between Hamas and Abbas collapsed and Hamas seized control of Gaza after armed conflict with forces loyal to the president.
In a copy of the statement seen by Reuters, Hamas issued its response to Trump’s 20-point plan after the US president today gave the group until Sunday to accept or reject the proposal. Trump has not said whether the terms would be subject to negotiation, as Hamas is seeking.
Notably, Hamas did not say whether it would agree to a stipulation that it disarm, a demand by Israel and the US that it has previously rejected.
In its statement, Hamas said it “appreciates the Arab, Islamic, and international efforts, as well as the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump, calling for an end to the war on the Gaza Strip, the exchange of prisoners, (and) the immediate entry of aid,” among other terms.
It said it was announcing its “approval of releasing all occupation prisoners — both living and remains — according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, with the necessary field conditions for implementing the exchange.”
But Hamas added: “In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter, through the mediators, into negotiations to discuss the details.”
The group said it was ready “to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independents (technocrats) based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing”.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hamas’ response to the proposal, which is backed by Israel as well as Arab and European powers.
Among the 20 points in Trump’s plan are an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of all hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and the introduction of a transitional government led by an international body.
Hamas accepts some elements of Trump’s Gaza plan but says others require further negotiations
As we get more from Hamas’s statement trickling in, the group has said it has accepted some elements of Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, including handing over administration of Gaza and releasing all the remaining hostages, but that it would seek further negotiations over many of its other terms.
In its statement, Hamas says it appreciates the efforts of Arab, Islamic and international efforts, as well as the efforts of US president Donald Trump.
I’ll bring you more from the statement as soon as we get it.
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip “to a Palestinian body of independent technocrats”, according to the statement.
