WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Wednesday, the White House said, as Trump presses for progress on a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner-release deal.

Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since July 6, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire that envisages a phased release of Israeli prisoners, Israeli troop withdrawal from parts of Gaza, and discussions on ending the conflict.

Trump will host the Qatari leader for dinner at the White House on Wednesday evening, the White House said in a daily schedule for the president. Trump on Sunday said he hoped talks for a ceasefire deal would be “straightened out” this week.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had said on Sunday he was “hopeful” about the ceasefire negotiations under way in Qatar, a key mediator between the two sides.

Hamas denies Israeli media claims of progress in ceasefire talks; 21 Palestinians killed in stampede at US-backed aid distribution site

Hamas says no progress in ceasefire talks

Hamas accused Israel on Wednesday of wanting to retain military control of the Gaza Strip, and denied Israeli media claims of progress in ceasefire talks.

The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital Doha are now in their second week, with the future presence of Israeli troops in the Palestinian territory a key issue.

Hamas wants a full withdrawal and last week rejected an Israeli proposal which it said would have kept troops in more than 40 per cent of Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan on Wednesday quoted a foreign official it did not identify as saying that work was ongoing to revise Israeli pullback maps.

But Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said: “(Israel) has not yet delivered any new or revised maps regarding military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

“The entire Gaza Strip is currently under the military control of Israel. What is happening on the ground confirms (Israel’s) intentions and plans to maintain and prolong military control within the Gaza Strip for the long term.”

21 Palestinians seeking aid killed

At least 21 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday at an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in what the US-backed group claimed was a crowd surge instigated by armed agitators.

The GHF, which is supported by Israel, said 19 people were trampled and one fatally stabbed during the crush at one of its centres in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd armed and affiliated with Hamas deliberately fomented the unrest,” GHF claimed in a statement.

Hamas rejected the GHF allegation as false and misleading, saying GHF guards and Israeli soldiers sprayed people with pepper gas and opened fire.

Witnesses said that guards at the site sprayed pepper gas at them after they had locked the gates to the centre, trapping them between the gates and the outer wire-fence.

People kept gathering and pressuring each other; when people pushed each other…those who couldn’t stand fell under the people and were crushed,“ said eyewitness Mahmoud Fojo, 21, who was hurt in the stampede.

“Some people started jumping over the netted fence and got wounded. We were injured, and God saved us. We were under the people and we said the Shahada (death prayers). We thought we were dying, finished,” he added.

Palestinian health officials said that 21 people had died of suffocation at the site. One medic said lots of people had been crammed into a small space and had been crushed. On Tuesday, the UN rights office in Geneva said it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks in the vicinity of aid sites and food convoys in Gaza - the majority of them close to GHF distribution points.

Most of those deaths were caused by gunfire that locals have blamed on the Israeli military.

The UN has called the GHFs model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards. Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, accused the GHF on Wednesday of gross mismanagement.

“People who flock in their thousands (to GHF sites) are hungry and exhausted, and they get squeezed into narrow places, amid shortages of aid and the absence of organisation and discipline by the GHF,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2025