A U.S. delegation is in Egypt to push President Trump’s peace plan. Israeli and Hamas officers are there.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Talks started in Egypt immediately to implement President Trump’s plan to finish the warfare in Gaza. Israeli and Hamas officers are there in Egypt. They will be joined by U.S. envoys for the oblique talks. The conferences are going down as Israel commemorates these killed and kidnapped on October 7, 2023, so precisely two years in the past tomorrow. Right here to inform us extra is NPR’s Ruth Sherlock, certainly one of our staff of reporters masking all these developments. Hey, Ruth.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Hey.
KELLY: Hey. So simply to put out the stakes, the demise toll in Gaza now stands at greater than 67,000 individuals. That is based on well being officers there. The warfare is now shifting into its third yr, and President Trump is warning he’ll again Israel to the hilt if Hamas doesn’t signal his deal. So what can we learn about how these talks are going?
SHERLOCK: Effectively, , Trump is asking all sides to maneuver quick to finish elements of the deal even this week. However the actuality is this might take longer than Trump suggests. There’s rather a lot that also must be labored out. Each side should agree, for instance, which Palestinian prisoners Israel will launch. And Hamas says the stays of a few of the useless hostages are beneath rubble, they usually want a big pause in Israeli bombardment to have the ability to exhume them. So either side are additionally coming to the negotiations, , looking for maximal concessions. A supply within the area near the talks, who requested NPR to not be recognized as a result of they weren’t approved to talk to the media, they estimate that there could possibly be a breakthrough within the subsequent seven to 14 days.
KELLY: Seven to 14 days – OK, what about, Ruth, individuals inside Gaza? How are individuals in Gaza viewing these peace talks?
SHERLOCK: Effectively, the reality is, Mary Louise, , day-after-day counts right here. Daily extra individuals are dying, and lots of Gazans reside in unspeakable situations, with famine in some areas. NPR’s Anas Baba met with Mohammed Nassar, a 31-year-old father in Gaza Metropolis. Town is now the main focus of intense Israeli bombardment and a floor offensive the place complete neighborhoods are being turned to rubble. Israel had issued an evacuation order for the varsity block the place he’d been sheltering.
MOHAMMED NASSAR: (Talking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: He is saying, “we did not know the place to go. We took our kids and ran by means of the streets.” They ultimately spent the evening exterior by the hospital, hoping that might be safer. However there have been no partitions between them and the bombardments, which he described as hell past creativeness. He advised Baba it introduced him unbelievable pleasure listening to that Hamas might quickly launch Israeli hostages, seeing it as a glimmer of hope for peace. And most Gazans are simply determined for an finish to the bombardment.
KELLY: After which carry us a few of the reporting from inside Israel, which is marking the second anniversary of the Hamas-led assault, as I discussed, in 2023. That assault left one thing like 1,200 individuals useless, one other 250 or so individuals taken as hostages. What’s the temper proper now inside Israel?
SHERLOCK: Yeah. My colleague Emily Feng went to the Nir Oz kibbutz in Israel, which nonetheless has 9 hostages in Gaza. She attended a gathering within the cemetery amongst gravestones from individuals who’d died within the October 7 assault, and it was a somber second of remembrance.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).
SHERLOCK: Households of the hostages are doing every thing they will to maintain up the stress for a deal, even pushing the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the peace prize to President Trump. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, he described Hamas’ October 7 assaults as an inhuman bloodbath of harmless individuals but additionally stated Israel’s offensive disregards, quote, “the truth that it’s concentrating on a largely defenseless inhabitants already pushed to the brink.”
KELLY: That is NPR’s Ruth Sherlock in Rome. Thanks, Ruth.
SHERLOCK: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAY IWAR SONG, “REFLECTION STATION”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts might differ. Transcript textual content could also be revised to appropriate errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its unique broadcast or publication. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
