U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday expressed gratitude to several nations, including Türkiye, for their involvement in shaping his proposed Gaza cease-fire plan.
"I want to thank the countries that help me put this together," Trump said in a video message where he named Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and "so many others."
While noting that the deal had yet to be finalized "in concrete," Trump nevertheless called the development an unprecedented "big day."
"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," he said.
Hamas issued its formal response earlier to Trump's plan earlier Friday, in which it approved the release of all Israeli captives, the delivery of the bodies of the deceased and the handover of Gaza's administration to an independent technocratic Palestinian body.
Earlier Friday, Trump gave Hamas until 6 pm Washington time (2200GMT) on Sunday to approve his plan.
The plan seeks to turn Gaza into a weapons-free zone, with a transitional governance mechanism overseen directly by Trump through a new international body tasked with monitoring implementation.
It includes the release of all Israeli captives held by Hamas within 72 hours of approval, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
The plan mandates a halt to hostilities, disarming all armed groups in Gaza, and Israel's gradual withdrawal from the war-torn coastal enclave, which is to be governed by a technocratic authority under the supervision of an international body led by the US president.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years. It tightened the siege in March when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombardment has killed nearly 66,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The U.N. and rights groups have repeatedly warned that the enclave is being rendered uninhabitable, with starvation and disease spreading rapidly amid widespread displacement.
