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UK Proposes Five-Point Plan to End Gaza War

Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis to Rafah after Israeli forces forced them to evacuate their camp. (EPA)
Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis to Rafah after Israeli forces forced them to evacuate their camp. (EPA)
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UK Proposes Five-Point Plan to End Gaza War

Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis to Rafah after Israeli forces forced them to evacuate their camp. (EPA)
Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis to Rafah after Israeli forces forced them to evacuate their camp. (EPA)

The UK is proposing a five-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas, as Western allies that have backed the Jewish state push for a permanent ceasefire and a political process that sets a pathway for the establishment of a Palestinian state, a report by the Financial Times revealed Saturday.

The initiative, which Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron discussed with Israeli and Palestinian leaders during a tour of the region this week, calls for an immediate pause in hostilities. That would be used to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza and to negotiate the permanent ceasefire, a senior UK official said.

It proposes setting out a clear “political horizon” for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and the formation of a technocratic Palestinian government to administer the West Bank and Gaza after the war.

The newspaper added that Hamas would have to release all hostages and commit to halting attacks against Israel, which regional states would guarantee. The plan also includes the suggestion that Hamas’s senior leaders in Gaza, including Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the October 7 attack, leave the strip for another country.

The New York Times revealed in a report on Saturday that top officials from at least ten different administrations are trying to forge a head-spinning set of deals to end the Gaza war and answer the divisive question of how the territory will be governed after the fighting stops.

The narrowest set of major discussions is focused on reaching a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This would involve the exchange of more than 100 Israeli hostages held by Hamas for thousands of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, the newspaper added.

The report was based on interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and other officials involved in the talks, all of whom spoke anonymously, Arab World Press reported.

Officials are tossing around many ideas, most of which are provisional, long shots, or strongly opposed by some parties. Several contentious suggestions are:

“Transferring power within the Palestinian Authority from the incumbent president, Mahmoud Abbas, to a new prime minister, while letting Mr. Abbas retain a ceremonial role, sending an Arab peacekeeping force to Gaza to bolster a new Palestinian administration there, and passing a UN Security Council resolution, backed by the United States, that would recognize the Palestinians’ right to statehood,” according to the newspaper.

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Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
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Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)

Türkiye on Thursday insisted the PKK and all groups allied with it must disarm and disband "immediately", a week after a historic call by the Kurdish militant group's jailed founder.

"The PKK and all groups affiliated with it must end all terrorist activities, dissolve and immediately and unconditionally lay down their weapons," a Turkish defense ministry source said.

The remarks made clear the demand referred to all manifestations of Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, costing tens of thousands of lives.

Although the insurgency targeted Türkiye, the PKK's leadership is based in the mountains of northern Iraq and its fighters are also part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key force in northeastern Syria.

Last week, Ocalan made a historic call urging the PKK to dissolve and his fighters to disarm, with the group on Saturday accepting his call and declaring a ceasefire.

The same day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that if the promises were not kept, Turkish forces would continue their anti-PKK operations.

"If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay... or deceive... we will continue our ongoing operations... until we eliminate the last terrorist," he said.

- Resonance in Syria, Iraq -

Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out three major military operations in northern Syria targeting PKK militants, which it sees as a strategic threat along its southern border.

Ankara has made clear it wants to see all PKK fighters disarmed wherever they are -- notably those in the US-backed SDF, which it sees as part of the PKK.

The SDF -- the bulk of which is made up of the Kurdish YPG -- spearheaded the fight that ousted ISIS extremists from Syria in 2019, and is seen by much of the West as crucial to preventing an extremist resurgence.

Last week, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi welcomed Ocalan's call for the PKK to lay down its weapons but said it "does not concern our forces" in northeastern Syria.

But Türkiye disagrees.

Since the toppling of Syria's Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has threatened military action unless YPG militants are expelled, deeming them to be a regional security problem.

"Our fundamental approach is that all terrorist organizations should disarm and be dissolved in Iraq and Syria, whether they are called the PKK, the YPG or the SDF," Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's ruling AKP, said on Monday.

Ocalan's call also affects Iraq, with the PKK leadership holed up in the mountainous north where Turkish forces have staged multiple air strikes in recent years.

Turkish forces have also established numerous bases there, souring Ankara's relationship with Baghdad.

"We don't want either the PKK or the Turkish army on our land... Iraq wants everyone to withdraw," Iraq's national security adviser Qassem al-Araji told AFP.

"Turkish forces are (in Iraq) because of the PKK's presence," he said, while pointing out that Türkiye had "said more than once that it has no territorial ambitions in Iraq".