What we covered
• Negotiations to finalize a deal based on President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan are underway in Egypt, and a source with knowledge of the talks told CNN that Israel and Hamas have made “progress” during the first two days of negotiations.
• US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to depart for Egypt today and arrive on Wednesday. Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer as well as the Qatari prime minister are likely to join the ceasefire talks then as well.
• Hundreds of people have been gathering in southern Israel to mark two years since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, when 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were taken hostage.
• Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza has killed more than 67,000, most of them women and children, and pushed parts of the enclave into famine. An independent UN inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel has denied.
Our coverage has wrapped up for the day. You can read more about Israel’s war on Hamas here.
Turkish intelligence chief to join talks in Sharm el-Sheikh regarding US-proposed plan for Gaza
Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MİT) chief İbrahim Kalın will join talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Wednesday to discuss the US-proposed plan for ending the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators began indirect talks in Egypt on Monday over the terms of a US-proposed plan for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal agreement.
“The primary agenda items at the meetings Kalın will attend will be establishing a ceasefire in Gaza, implementing a prisoner exchange, and delivering humanitarian aid,” the Turkish state broadcaster said Tuesday.
Two years of Israel’s war has killed one child every 52 minutes in Gaza, Palestinian officials say
Human rights advocates escalated calls for a permanent end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and to release all hostages held by Hamas, on Tuesday – two years after the October 7, 2023, attacks into southern Israel.
More than 24 months of hostilities has rendered huge swathes of Gaza uninhabitable, erased entire families and orphaned tens of thousands of children.
Women are having miscarriages after being forced to make exhausting displacement journeys from northern to southern parts of the strip, according to James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN’s children’s agency. Meanwhile, children in Gaza’s largest city are shoeless and starving, with “nowhere to go,” the UNICEF official reported on October 3.
Here’s a breakdown of how the war has impacted children in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to figures published by the Ministry of Health in the enclave on Tuesday:
- At least 20,179 children have been killed.
- At least 1,029 children under aged one have been killed.
- At least 420 babies have been born and killed.
- At least 58,554 children have been orphaned.
- At least 1,102 children are now amputees.
- At least 914,102 have been deprived of education.
Chief Hamas negotiator says goals remain Palestinian self-determination, end to war and Israeli withdrawal
Hamas’ top negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya has said he intends to hold “responsible and serious” ceasefire discussions while in Egypt.
Al-Hayya reaffirmed his commitment to “carry with us the goals and ambitions of our people for stability, freedom, the establishment of a state and self-determination,” in an interview with Egyptian state media Al Qahera News on Tuesday.
“We have come with the direct goal of ending the war, the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation from Gaza, and a full prisoner exchange – the release of all Israeli prisoners, the living and the dead, in exchange for the release of the Palestinian prisoners,” he added.
He also thanked US President Donald Trump for “his vigorous pursuit to stop this war.”
The senior Hamas official warned that “killing, bombing and destruction, as well as cutting off aid to the people, are still ongoing, especially in the northern Gaza Strip,” exactly two years after Israel launched its offensive in Gaza, following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks.
Hamas seeks “measures and mechanisms” for a permanent end to the hostilities, added Al-Hayya. “We want procedures and guarantees from the sponsoring countries and from President Trump so that the war will stop and not return,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invokes “war for our very existence” two years after October 7
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to “secure the eternity of Israel” on Tuesday, two years after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks.
Netanyahu hailed a “war for our very existence and our future,” against the backdrop of Israel’s 24-month offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
“Two years have passed since the October 7 attack – the horrifying massacre of our brothers and sisters, residents of the western Negev and participants of the Nova party,” he said in a statement. “We paid a terribly painful price. Infants, children, adults and the elderly were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists in a shocking manner.
“We embrace with love the grieving families, wish a full recovery to those wounded in body and spirit, and of course continue to act by every means to return all the hostages – both the living and the deceased,” added Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister warned that “whoever raises a hand” against Israel “suffers unprecedented knockout blows.”
“Our bloodthirsty enemies struck us hard, but they did not break us. Soon they discovered the tremendous strength of the people of Israel,” he said. “We will continue to act to achieve all the goals of the war: the return of all the hostages, the elimination of Hamas rule, and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
Israelis gather for memorial ceremony marking October 7 attacks
Thousands of Israelis gathered around the country tonight to watch an anniversary memorial ceremony held in Tel Aviv for the victims of the October 7 attacks, according to organizers.
Some packed shoulder-to-shoulder in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, while others watched a broadcast of the ceremony from near the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem. The commemoration features many famous Israeli musical artists and is being broadcast on most television stations.
The ceremony tonight is special in part because it is technically unofficial: the Israeli government will mark the Hebrew calendar date of the attacks
next week at a different event.
This ceremony was organized by KUMU, a group founded by October 7 survivors and residents of Israeli towns surrounding the Gaza Strip. KUMU funded the anniversary memorial entirely through crowdfunding, without government help.
Israeli president thanks Trump for ‘incredible efforts’ to release hostages from Gaza
Israeli President Israel Herzog conveyed his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for “his incredible efforts” to “bring peace to the Middle East” on Tuesday – exactly two years after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks into southern Israel.
The Israeli president commemorated allies and extended “special thanks” to his US counterpart.
“I pray for the success of his efforts and the success of the negotiating teams,” Herzog said in a post on X.
Israeli, Palestinian, Qatari and US officials are all set to convene for ongoing negotiations to end Israel’s war in Gaza, and release the hostages held by Hamas in the enclave.
“Two years since that dark day, October 7, 2023, the day Israel’s soul was torn apart, when Hamas terrorists unleashed unspeakable evil against innocent men, women, and children,” Herzog added.
“As antisemitism surges like a tidal wave across the world, we stand shoulder to shoulder with Jewish communities everywhere,” he said. “Israel remains a beacon of freedom and democracy in a turbulent region, and I truly believe that out of the pain of these years, a new era of cooperation and shared prosperity can yet be born.”
Israel and Hamas have made “progress” in first two days of talks, source says
Israel and Hamas have made “progress” during the first two days of negotiations in Egypt, a source with knowledge of the talks said.
High-level officials from the US and Qatar are expected to arrive in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday as a direct result of that progress, the source said.
US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are expected to meet with the Qatari prime minister on Wednesday, the source said.
The talks are intended to address “remaining details” and establish an implementation mechanism that all parties can agree on.
Qatari prime minister will head to Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani will head to Sharm el-Sheikh for peace talks on Wednesday, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson.
Spokesperson Majed al-Ansari wrote in a post on X that Al-Thani’s participation “comes at a critical stage of the talks, reaffirming the determination of the mediators to reach an agreement that would bring an end to the catastrophic war in the Gaza Strip.”
Al-Thani’s trip also comes a few days after a direct apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the Qatari leader during a meeting with US President Donald Trump to apologize for an unprecedented September strike targeting Hamas’ negotiating team in Doha.
At the time, Al-Thani was pessimistic about the chances for peace, declaring in an interview with CNN that Netanyahu had “killed any hope” for bringing Israeli hostages out of Gaza.
Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer likely to join ceasefire talks on Wednesday
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is likely to join the ceasefire talks at Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday, according to a senior Israeli official. Dermer is considered the closest confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Dermer is the head of the Israeli negotiation team, but he hasn’t been part of the Israel-Hamas indirect negotiations on Monday or Tuesday, which were handled by a lower-level delegation. An Israeli source told CNN he will be joining talks when US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrive in Sharm el-Sheikh.
“When Kushner and Witkoff will be there – Dermer will be there as well,” the source said.
Dermer is Netanyahu’s key point man to both the Trump administration and Arab states in the region. He was appointed to lead the negotiation team in February 2025, after Netanyahu dismissed the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, who had overseen the previous hostage deals in November 2023 and January 2025.
Since his appointment, however, no new hostage deal with Hamas has been reached, and only one hostage has been freed in a separate US-Hamas arrangement.
After more than two years of Israel’s war, Palestinians would rather "die on our land" than flee again
A small Palestinian boy and girl clamber over Ruqayya Abdullah Abdelalim Asaliya. The trio are surrounded by heaps of debris, half-pitched tents and battered buildings.
“Our life is miserable. There is barely any water,” the woman, displaced in Gaza City, northern Gaza, said on Tuesday. “The shelling and strikes do not stop.
“We would rather die on our land,” she told CNN. “The people are finished.”
After more than two years of severe hunger, disease and thunderous Israeli shelling in Gaza, several Palestinians told CNN they are desperate for a kernel of relief. After ceasefire talks resumed in Egypt on Monday, some say they remain steadfast to the preservation of their land – crowning their hopes on a permanent end to the hostilities.
Nearby, Zuhair Dawla stands on a long, beaten stretch of road. The resident told CNN he has refused to leave Gaza’s largest city.
Another Palestinian man, Ibrahim Sadaq al Deeb, warned that no one has been left untouched by poverty, famine or displacement.
“This is not a war, this is genocide,” he said. “We have children who are dying of hunger and no one feels for them.”
At least 20,179 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Ministry of Health in the enclave reported on Tuesday. On average, 28 children are killed per day in Gaza, the ministry added.
Pro-Palestinian rallies in cities around the world draw criticism
Pro-Palestinian rallies in cities around the world today have drawn criticism for their timing, which coincides with the second anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel.
More than 1,200 people were killed in the attacks on October 7, 2023, and 251 others were taken hostage, sparking the ensuing war in Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.
In London, at least two separate pro-Palestinian rallies were planned, including an “inter-university march” organized by pro-Palestinian student groups, who said they were marching as a “refusal to let genocide be normalized, ignored, or erased.”
In an article published by British newspaper The Times, the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the student protests “un-British,” writing: “this is not who we are as a country.”
Video published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed a small pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney. One speaker, lawyer Ramia Abdo Sultan, told the crowd that “October 7 did not happen out of the blue. It is a culmination of 77 years of disposition, siege, dehumanization and oppression.”
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, called that rally “shockingly insensitive” and said that it was carried out with “terrible timing” in an interview with the Sydney radio station 2GB.
Video taken by Reuters showed that another rally took place in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Trump shares “sincerest thanks” to hostage families for Nobel Peace Prize recommendation
US President Donald Trump and first lady, Melania Trump, have expressed their “sincerest thanks” to families of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza for recommending his award nomination to the Nobel Committee.
The US president said he had committed to “ensuring the total destruction of Hamas,” in a letter published by the hostage families on Tuesday – two years after the militant group led the October 7, 2023, attacks into southern Israel.
“Since the abhorrent events of October 7, 2023, that saw families ripped apart, children torn from their parents’ arms, and innocent people shot, killed, and raped, I have been resolved to returning all the hostages home, and ensuring the total destruction of Hamas so these horrific acts may never be repeated,” the letter said.
“These unspeakable scenes have been seared into our memories, and we will never forget,” the letter added.
“My entire administration has been touched by the fact that, through the unimaginable pain and suffering of spending two years not knowing where your loved ones are, you have continued telling their stories and advocating on their behalf,” Trump added, in the letter.
The president added that he remains “steadfastly committed” to “restoring a foreign policy of peace through strength ending the years of endless wars, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.”
Officials from Washington are expected to arrive in Egypt on Wednesday, where Israeli and Palestinian negotiators started fraught ceasefire talks earlier this week – over a 20-point proposal by Trump to end Israel’s war in Gaza, and release the hostages held by Hamas.
Former Israeli minister and architect of Oslo Accords expresses optimism over ceasefire talks
Former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who was architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, says he is “optimistic” about the current Gaza ceasefire plan talks because of US President Donald Trump’s leading role in the process.
“I’m optimistic because I think President Trump will not easily give up,” Beilin told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Connect the World. “He is trying to do a lot in order to promote the efforts towards the end of the war, the release of the hostages and then another force which will govern Gaza.”
Asked about a key sticking point, the timeline of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, Beilin argued the majority of Israelis would support the move and dismissed discussion among the far-right about resettling in the enclave.
Witkoff and Kushner expected to arrive in Egypt Wednesday amid ongoing Gaza negotiations
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to depart for Egypt on Tuesday and arrive on Wednesday amid continuing negotiations over the release of hostages being held by Hamas and a broader end to the war in Gaza, two sources familiar told CNN Tuesday.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators are in Sharm el-Sheikh to try to work out the logistical details around a ceasefire and hostage release after Hamas conditionally accepted part of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace proposal.
Witkoff and Kushner were deeply involved in the proposal. The US President on Monday referred to Witkoff andhis son-in-law as an “A+ team” and expressed confidence that a deal would be reached.
One of the sources said the goal is to agree a deal this week but it’s unclear if that will be possible. They added that it is possible Qatari and Egyptian negotiators will be able to tee up some agreed action by the time Kushner and Witkoff arrive.
Israel marks 2 years since October 7 as negotiators work toward a ceasefire plan in Egypt
Israelis are today commemorating two years of Hamas’ October 7 attacks on their country. Around 1,200 people were killed in the attacks, with 250 others taken hostage, sparking the ensuing war in Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.
Meanwhile, delegations representing Israel and Hamas are in Egypt for indirect ceasefire talks.
If you’re just joining us, here’s what we’ve been covering so far today:
- October 7 commemorations: Hundreds of Israelis are gathering to mark two years since Hamas’ terror attacks on the country. Mourners have laid flowers and tributes to the victims, comforting one another at memorials across Israel.
- Negotiations underway: Delegations from Israel and Hamas are in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, where they aim to work towards the “first stage” of the Trump administration’s proposal to end the war in Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty said today.
- Hamas delegation: Among the Hamas negotiation team in Egypt are three survivors of Israel’s strike on the Qatari capital Doha last month, a senior Hamas source has told CNN.
- Details to be addressed: Several details within US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan have yet to be worked out, according to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari. “There are many details that need to be addressed,” he said.
Hamas outlines key demands for ceasefire deal
Hamas has outlined the demands it is presenting in indirect talks with Israel, as delegations for the two parties work toward a Gaza ceasefire plan in Egypt.
The militant group’s negotiators are “working to remove all obstacles to an agreement that meets the aspirations of our people,” Fawzi Barhoum, a senior Hamas official, said in a speech aired by Hamas media today.
What are the demands? They include a permanent, comprehensive ceasefire, the Israeli military’s withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip and the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave, Barhoum said.
Hamas is also calling for guarantees that displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes, a “just prisoner exchange deal,” and the immediate start of a “comprehensive reconstruction process under the supervision of a national Palestinian body of independent technocrats” in Gaza, he said.
Barhoum suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may attempt to “obstruct and sabotage the current round of negotiations, as he has deliberately done with all previous rounds.”
"More than a hint of optimism" regarding ceasefire plan, Israeli opposition leader tells CNN
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has said that there is “more than a hint of optimism in the air,” despite the fact that today marks two years since Hamas’ October 7, as ceasefire talks based on US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal continue in Egypt.
“I think the 20 point plan that President Trump and his team put on the table is tangible and doable,” Lapid told CNN’s Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv today.
Watch his full remarks in the video below:
Netanyahu "cornered" into accepting Trump proposal, former Israeli consul says
A former Israeli consul told CNN today of his concern about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to the 20-point peace plan set out by US President Donald Trump, saying that he believes the agreement is unwanted by Netanyahu.
Speaking to Audie Cornish on CNN This Morning, Alon Pinkas said Netanyahu was being “cornered” into accepting the plan. He then drew attention to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza and questioned why a ceasefire has not already been actioned.
“Trump twice asked Israel to stop the bombardments and Israel did not, in complete defiance of the president’s request,” Pinkas said.
The ambassador described Trump’s proposal as problematic but workable, adding that it should be common sense to implement a ceasefire even without it having been stipulated in the document.
Pinkas, who lives in Tel Aviv, said the general mood in Israel was still one of anxiety. “It’s dejection. It’s still devastation. It’s still agony,” he added.
But Trump’s pitch is giving the people some hope to cling to, and Pinkas describes Israelis as aligned with the US president.
Hostages Families Forum thanks Trump for his dedication to ending Gaza war and returning hostages
Israel’s Hostages Families Forum has thanked US President Donald Trump for his dedication to ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of the hostages held there, in a statement released two years after Hamas’ October 7 attacks and as talks on his peace plan are held in Egypt.
“Two years ago, our lives changed forever,” the forum said. “Terrorists invaded our communities, parties, and bases, murdering, raping, injuring, and kidnapping hundreds of innocent people.”
A total of 48 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including one taken prior to October 7, 2023, with 20 still believed to be alive.
“Every single one of them must come home. The living need rehabilitation, and the deceased deserve burial in their homeland,” the forum said.
The forum said it is “profoundly grateful to President Trump for his unwavering dedication and leadership. His deal gives us renewed hope that this nightmare may finally end and our loved ones will come home.”
It also called upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “end this nightmare.”
“This is the moment to reach an agreement that will end the longest war in our history and bring all 48 hostages home,” it said.
