The Israeli military launched another wave of strikes on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington for cease-fire talks. The attacks targeted two major hospitals along with residential and port areas, leaving dozens dead and tens of thousands newly displaced.
Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday that Israel struck the al-Shifa Hospital, the Al Helou Hospital, a “multi-story residential building” and parts of Gaza City’s port area. According to its sources, at least 33 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes so far. The United Nations Site Management Cluster estimated on Monday that nearly 58,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza City over the span of just five days as Israeli forces began their invasion of the city, reported Middle East Eye.
Doctors inside al-Shifa Hospital described “horrific scenes” as patients and staff were forced to flee even while in need of urgent medical care, according to Al-Jazeera. Hasan al-Sha’ir, the hospital’s medical director, said staff have continued to work “despite the harsh conditions and overwhelming fear.”
The Associated Press published an interview over the weekend with Andee Vaughan, an American nurse who volunteered for three months at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza. Vaughan described what she witnessed as intentional devastation. “Everything that I’ve seen as an emergency nurse has been purposeful,” she said. “From the malnutrition, to the targeted shootings of civilians.” She added that the medical system “has been destroyed” and that attacks on hospital infrastructure “really became targeted” to the blocks surrounding her hospital late last week. Vaughan said she has received desperate messages from colleagues who remain in Gaza: “I’m getting messages from coworkers… They’re telling me that they’re going to die. And they know that they’re going to die.”
The latest round of destruction unfolded hours before Netanyahu’s scheduled White House meeting with Trump, where the U.S. president was expected to press him to accept a deal to end the war in Gaza. Axios reported that Trump is prepared to pin the blame on Netanyahu if he rejects the proposal, accusing him of “enabling Hamas and doing nothing for the Palestinians who have so many humanitarian needs.”
Palestinian-American analyst Yousef Munayyer expressed skepticism about any real divide between Netanyahu and the Trump administration. “This seems like bad news,” he wrote on X. “Every time such reports of White House frustration get leaked to Axios, it is usually a set up for what is actually US-Israel collusion to keep the genocide going.”
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, emphasized the leverage Trump has over Netanyahu ahead of the meeting. “Trump could end Israel’s genocide in Gaza when he meets Netanyahu tomorrow—if he threatens to suspend U.S. military aid and arms sales,” Roth said.
On Monday, Trump announced that Netanyahu had agreed to a peace plan to end the war in Gaza. The White House released details of the proposal, which would require Hamas to return all remaining Israeli hostages taken during the October 7, 2023 attacks in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Under the plan, Hamas would be barred from governing Gaza after the war. Instead, responsibility for day-to-day governance would be transferred temporarily to “a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza.”
The plan dropped Trump’s earlier demands about expelling Palestinians from their land, stating that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return.” It also asserted that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza,” despite repeated comments from Netanyahu’s government in recent months about taking full control of the territory.
The proposal was met with sharp criticism from observers. Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, rejected Trump’s claims of progress. “Trump and Netanyahu’s remarks today were a litany of lies about the last 30 years, not a promising foundation for peace,” Duss said. He highlighted Trump’s promise of “full US backing” to “finish the job” if the plan is not agreed to as the clearest indication of continuity: “This would be more of what we have seen not only the last nine months, but the last two years, as the United States has unconditionally armed and subsidized a genocide in Gaza.” While Duss acknowledged that removing forced expulsion from the plan was a step forward, he warned it “contains numerous opportunities for Netanyahu to renege on his commitments, as he has repeatedly done in the past.”
Ryan Grim of Drop Site News voiced doubts about the deal’s durability, writing that he is waiting to see “what Netanyahu does to scuttle the deal once he leaves the White House.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, pointed to a recent example of U.S. leverage. He noted that Trump pressured Netanyahu to issue a rare apology to Qatar after an Israeli attack against Hamas leaders on its soil. “That Netanyahu was forced to apologize to the emir of Qatar by phone from the White House with Trump in the room shows the leverage that the US has over Israel when it chooses to,” Parsi wrote. “Too often it chooses otherwise. It could’ve chosen not to support the genocide in the first place.”
According to Drop Site News, the governments of Qatar and Egypt transmitted the proposal to Hamas following its announcement. Hamas has said it will study the plan.
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