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Federal prosecutors urged a judge on Tuesday to sentence Sean “Diddy” Combs to 11 years and three months in prison after he was found guilty this summer on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

The sentencing recommendation was filed shortly after midnight early on Tuesday, and just several days ahead of Combs’s sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday.

In July, Combs was convicted by a federal jury of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, which each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years. The jury acquitted him of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

Combs had pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

In their sentencing memo on Tuesday, prosecutors urged Judge Arun Subramanian to impose a prison term of no less than 135 months and a $500,000 fine.

“His crimes of conviction are serious and have warranted sentences over 10 years in multiple cases for defendants who, like Sean Combs, engaged in violence and put others in fear,” the prosecutors wrote.

“A substantial term of imprisonment is also needed in this case because the defendant is unrepentant,” they added.

During the trial, federal prosecutors accused Combs of using his power, fame, wealth and influence, as well as violence and threats of blackmail, to coerce two of his former girlfriends into taking part in what were described as drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts, referred to as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights”, which they said Combs orchestrated, watched, masturbated to and sometimes filmed.

Throughout the trial, the defense acknowledged past instances of domestic violence, but denied that any coercion or sex trafficking took place and maintained that all sexual activity was consensual and part of a “swingers lifestyle”.

Combs has been held in a Brooklyn federal jail since his arrest in September 2024. Last week, his lawyers asked the court to sentence Combs to no more than 14 months in prison. Due to time already served, the sentence put forward by his legal team would enable him to be freed in a matter of months.

The defense described Combs’s 13 months behind bars as “life-changing” and “productive” and stated that he has undergone rehabilitation, including “getting clean of all substances”.

“It is time for Mr Combs to go home to his family,” they wrote. Alongside their filing, the defense also submitted more than 60 letters of support for Combs, including from members of his family.

According to CNN, the US probation department has recommended a sentence ranging between five and seven years in prison.

In Tuesday’s filing, the federal prosecutors said: “Incredibly, while the defendant conceded his acts of violence and abuse throughout trial, he now argues that his victims should shoulder the blame.”

“The defendant tries to recast decades of abuse as simply the function of mutually toxic relationships,” they wrote. “But there is nothing mutual about a relationship where one person holds all the power and the other ends up bloodied and bruised.”

Later in the document, they said that Combs “is not the victim”, adding: “The Court should focus on the very real effects that the defendant’s conduct had on the lives of the actual victims, his victims.”

Along with their sentencing recommendation, the prosecutors also submitted letters to the court on Tuesday from two of Combs’s accusers and several of Combs’s former associates.

Among them was one from singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, one of Combs’s former girlfriends who was the prosecution’s star witness in this case.

During the trial, Ventura testified about their decade-long relationship, which she said was marked by physical and emotional abuse. She told the court that she was coerced and blackmailed into taking part in the so-called “freak-offs” and during the trial jurors were shown the 2016 hotel surveillance footage of Combs attacking Ventura in a hotel hallway.

In her letter to the judge on Tuesday, Ventura wrote: “While the jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak-offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know that is the truth, and his sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim.”

She said that she still has “nightmares and flashbacks on a regular, everyday basis, and continue to require psychological care to cope with my past”.

“My worries that Sean Combs or his associates will come after me and my family is my reality,” she wrote to the court. “I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial.”

“If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that victims and survivors will never be safe,” she wrote. “I hope that your decision considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.”

Britain faces a “defining choice” between a patriotic Labour party promising national renewal or “division and decline” under the “snake oil merchant” Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer has said.

Speaking at the Labour party’s conference in Liverpool, the prime minister said he was engaged in a “fight of the soul of our country” with the Reform UK leader, who “doesn’t like Britain”.

He suggested that established politicians bore some responsibility for Farage’s rise, saying they had “placed too much faith in globalisation” and that Labour had “become a party that patronised working people”.

Starmer addressed the party grassroots on Tuesday after a bruising month dominated by questions over his political judgment and deepening unpopularity.

Seeking to unite his fractured base, he argued that voters had “reasonable” concerns about illegal migration but that there was “a moral line” that Farage and others had crossed.

The prime minister vowed to “fight” anyone who argued that people who were not white could not be English or British and that families who had lived in the UK for generations should be deported, saying they were “an enemy of national renewal”.

“If you incite racist violence and hatred, that is not expressing concern: it’s criminal. This party – this great party – is proud of our flags, yet if they are painted alongside graffiti, telling a Chinese takeaway owner to ‘go home’, that’s not pride; that’s racism,” he told activists to loud applause.

“If you say or imply that people cannot be English or British because of the colour of their skin, that mixed-heritage families owe you an explanation, that people who have lived here for generations, raised their children here, built lives here – working in our schools, our hospitals, running businesses – our neighbours, if you say they should now be deported, then mark my words, we will fight you with everything we have because you are an enemy of national renewal.”

He said that against the surging popularity of Farage’s Reform UK, Labour was in “a fight for the soul of our country every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war”.

“We can all see that the country faces a choice, a defining choice, Britain stands at a fork in the road, we can choose decency, we can choose division, renewal or decline,” he said, adding that Farage “doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain” and wanted to create “a competition of victims”.

He added: “Let us spell it out: controlling migration is a reasonable goal, but if you throw bricks and smash up private property that’s not legitimate, that is thuggery.

“We will crack down on illegal working, we will remove people with no right to be here and we will secure Britain’s borders. But there is a line, a moral line – and it isn’t just Farage who crosses it, there are also people who should know better sowing fear and discord across our country.”

The prime minister’s remarks marked a change of tone from his “island of strangers” speech in May that sparked uproar from Labour MPs, who said his rhetoric echoed Enoch Powell. Starmer said later he “deeply regretted” using the phrase.

He also sought to strike a more optimistic tone about the state of the country on Tuesday than he did in opposition and the first months in government.

“I just do not accept that Britain is broken. There are so many opportunities to make a difference,” he told activists, citing energy and infrastructure investments around the UK and trade deals with countries including the US and India. “Is that broken Britain?” he asked repeatedly.

His remarks were a tacit admission that Labour ministers were too gloomy about the UK after entering office. In a press conference two days after becoming prime minister, Starmer declared that public services including the NHS and prisons were “broken” and that he “can’t pretend we can fix everything overnight”.

The following month, speaking from the Downing Street rose garden, Starmer said “things are worse than we ever imagined” and that “we have not just inherited an economic black hole, but a societal black hole”.

Farage took aim at Starmer for calling his immigration policy racist in a live broadcast on Tuesday afternoon, where he said the prime minister’s intervention “directly threatens the safety” of Reform UK campaigners and was an “absolute disgrace” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Farage accused Starmer of calling all Reform supporters racist “by implication” and said he was unfit to govern. David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, told the BBC that Farage “has got a bit of a brass neck”.

Seeking to position Labour as the agent of change in his speech, Starmer said: “We must never, ever find ourselves defending a status quo that manifestly failed working people.”

He said successive governments had “placed too much faith in globalisation”, including with “lazy assumptions that immigration is all we need to give us workers … it doesn’t matter if industry leaves, it doesn’t matter if we don’t train our young people, it doesn’t matter if wealth creation is hoarded by just a few communities”.

Preparing the ground for unpopular announcements in the November budget, Starmer warned party members that being in government “requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy, decisions that are not always comfortable for our party”.

He criticised “snake oil merchants” on the right and on the left who sought to convince the public there was a “quick fix” to all of Britain’s problems. He cited calls for unfunded tax cuts, “a wealth tax that somehow solves every problem” and the Brexit campaign’s promises that leaving the EU would bring £350m more a week to the NHS.

In an echo of Gordon Brown’s 2009 conference speech, Starmer listed his government’s achievements, including nationalising British Steel, banning fire-and-rehire practices and zero-hours contracts, introducing stronger protections for renters, rebuilding schools and extending free school meals.

He announced that he would scrap the New Labour target of having 50% of young people go to university and replace it with an aim of two-thirds doing either a degree or a “gold standard apprenticeship”.

He said Britain needed a “more muscular state” freed from unnecessary red tape, as well as investment outside London and the south-east, more money for public services and strengthened workers’ rights.

In the days leading up to conference, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, criticised Starmer’s leadership and economic policy and said Labour MPs had been urging him to mount a leadership challenge.

But during a live Guardian podcast recording on Monday, Burnham appeared to retreat from the threat of a leadership challenge, saying he thought Starmer was the right man for the job.

Starmer was introduced at conference by Margaret Aspinall, a campaigner for justice for victims of the Hillsborough disaster, who welcomed a long-awaited law that will force public officials to tell the truth during investigations into major disasters.

“I’ve met a prime minister who’s kept his promise,” she said. Details of the legislation, unveiled earlier this month, have been welcomed by campaigners who feared it would be watered down.

In an unusual move, Donald Trump’s administration is using the US Department of Housing and Urban Development website to blame the looming government shutdown on the “radical left”.

The giant red banner, splashed across the agency website on Tuesday morning, comes after Republican and Democratic leaders did not reach an agreement on government spending legislation beyond the Tuesday night deadline, which will result in hundreds of thousands of employees furloughed and agencies shutting down key functions.

“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people,” states the message on the HUD website, which also appears as pop-up window. The message is reminiscent of the language the White House has increasingly used on social media accounts, as well as the president’s personal posts.

It did not appear Tuesday that other federal agencies had similar messages on their homepages.

Leaders of both parties have blamed the closures on the other side.

After party leaders did come to any new agreements during a meeting Monday with Trump, the president posted a racist deepfake video on his platform Truth Social that used fabricated audio from the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero.

Jeffries addressed Trump’s video and the potential shutdown Tuesday.

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“We are fighting to lower the high cost of living and to protect the health care of everyday Americans,” Jeffries said. “Mr President, the next time you have something to say about me. Don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video. When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.”

At an address of assembled generals and admirals, Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, outlined changes to military policy and philosophy in a set of 10 directives meant to change organizational culture around fitness, race and gender, describing the previous state of military affairs as the “woke department.”

Decrying “the insane fallacy that diversity is our strength”, Hegseth said he had chosen to fire previous generals because they had been personally invested in progressive ideas about diversity.

“It’s nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people helped create or even benefited from that culture,” he said, adding that he expects others to leave. “If the words that you hear today make your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.”

Hegseth has fired several generals and admirals in the first months of his tenure, a disproportionate number of which have been Black or women, including chair of the joint chiefs, CQ Brown.

“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the joint chiefs,” Hegseth said during a November interview on the Shawn Ryan Show. “Any general that was involved, general, admiral, or whatever, that was involved in any of that DEI woke shit has got to go.”

The military does not have racial quotas for promotion, but does take steps to ensure that non-white and female troops do not face racial or gender discrimination. While noting that “being a racist has been illegal in our formations since 1948,” Hegseth said that the department would review promotions policies and eliminate racial quotas.

“Colorblind, gender-neutral, merit based; the entire promotion process, including evaluations of warfighting capabilities, is being thoroughly re-examined,” he said.

Hegseth said the Pentagon would overhaul inspector general and equal opportunity office rules to reduce complaints. He also said the Pentagon would establish a process to remove “forgivable earnest or minor infractions” from leader’s records. “I call it the no more walking on eggshells policy,” he said. “No more frivolous complaints … no more side tracking careers.”

The gathering of flag officers together in the same place and time is largely unprecedented. Rather than record the equivalent of a Ted talk video or send an email, Hegseth chose to deliver a theatrically-incendiary speech meant as much for a wider political audience as it was for men and women wearing stars on their shoulders. Hegseth took potshots at former chief of staff Mark Milley and scattered jingoism throughout his address.

“Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the war department,” Hegseth said. “To our enemies, FAFO,” he said referring to the acronym for “fuck around and find out”.

Hegseth used this gathering to impress the need for a risk-taking culture and a return to physical and appearance standards set in 1990. Permission to wear a beard – a shaving profile – will be broadly rescinded for everyone except special forces troops. Women in combat roles will be expected to meet the same physical standards as men.

“War does not care if you are a man or a woman,” Hegseth said.

Drill sergeants will be empowered to swear and conduct “shark attack” type-training, during which instructors gang up on a recruit and shout at them, Hegseth said. Basic training should be “scary, tough and disciplined. We’re empowering drill sergeants to instil healthy fear in new recruits.”

Hegseth also said the rules of engagement would be reviewed. “We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters.”

Among his first acts as secretary, Hegseth fired or reassigned many of the military lawyers who advise senior leaders about the legality of operations. He then commissioned his personal lawyer and former naval officer, Tim Parlatore, as a navy commander to oversee changes to legal advice to give commanders more leeway to pursue more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach in charging soldiers with battlefield crimes.

The suspected shooter in the killing of at least four people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan on Sunday bore a virulent hatred of the Mormon religion which he frequently referred to as the antichrist, local people have reported.

The hostile views of the suspect, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, who was shot and killed by police minutes after he opened fire inside the church in Grand Blanc Township, have emerged as the FBI continues to search for a motive in the mass shooting. The authorities have labelled the incident as a “targeted act of violence”.

Days before the shooting, a candidate for the local Burton city council, Kris Johns, had a doorstep encounter with Sanford lasting for about 20 minutes. Johns told the Detroit Free Press that the conversation quickly turned to Sanford’s disdain for the Mormon faith.

Sanford went on a tirade against the church, describing its worshippers as “the antichrist”, the newspaper reported. He asked the candidate a number of questions that grew more pointed, on the history of the church and its Mormon bible.

Close childhood friends of Sanford’s, Peter and Francis Tersigni, told the New York Times that he had become fixated on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he lived in Utah following a four-year stint in the US marines. He had fallen in love with a member of the church and had been distressed when the relationship ended.

“He got this whole fascination with Mormons, and they are the antichrist, and they are going to take over the world,” Francis Tersigni told the newspaper.

Sanford is suspected of having rammed his silver pick-up truck into the front doors of the Grand Blanc church before opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle on the hundreds of congregants inside. Two people were shot and killed, and two others were found dead in the wreckage of the church – which was burnt to the ground using gasoline.

The first victim of the church shooting has been identified as John Bond, 77, a veteran of the US navy who had served in Vietnam. He had six children and 10 grandchildren, Fox2 Detroit reported.

The father of the suspect, Thomas Sanford, apologized to the families of those who died in the shooting. “I feel terrible about all the families that have been hurt, and they’re under the same crap that I’m going under, that my wife and I are going under. I apologize for that,” he told the Detroit Free Press.

The shock of the attack on worshippers at the Mormon church has reverberated across Michigan, which has suffered repeated mass shootings in recent months. According to the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive (GVA), there have been 12 such cases in the state so far this year.

Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, lamented that “as a state, we know the pain of this too well. We’ve seen gun violence in our schools, stores, parades, festivals and our houses of worship”.

She added: “This community is reeling right now.”

The US is wrestling with an exceptionally high level of gun deaths fueled by easy access to guns. According to the GVA, there have been 327 mass shootings across the country this year – cases in which four or more victims are killed or wounded, not counting the shooter.

The carnage at the Mormon church was one among six separate mass shootings that erupted over the weekend. On Saturday, a gunman opened fire from a boat on the American Fish Company restaurant in Southport, North Carolina, killing three people and injuring eight.

Nigel Edge, 40, has been charged with murder, attempted murder and assault. Like the suspected Michigan shooter, Edge was a Marine veteran who served in Iraq.

He was awarded a Purple Heart, a medal granted to those wounded or killed in action.

Edge, who changed his name from Sean DeBevoise in 2023, wrote a book under his previous name in which he described how he learned how to handle a rifle while out hunting with his father in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation also describes how he had suffered four bullet injuries while in Iraq and incurred friendly fire from his own troops.

One of the four bullets struck him in the head, he wrote.

The suspect’s mother, Sandra Lynn DeBevoise, is reported to have said that her son’s war injuries had led to “delusions and PTSD”.

Notably, after escorting her to the event in 2012, DeBevoise filed a lawsuit accusing Kellie Pickler of trying to harm him by giving him a poisoned glass of whiskey. The judge overseeing the case – which was filed in February – dismissed the claims as “so delusional that they are simply unbelievable”, the culture news outlet Complex reported.

One of the three victims in the Southport shooting has been identified as Joy Rogers, 64, who had recently moved to the town from California in retirement. A statement from her family said that “she lived up to her name–her spirit radiated joy, light, and kindness everywhere she went”.

Cat Stevens, who now goes by Yusuf Islam, has postponed the North American leg of his book tour due to unspecified visa issues, the singer announced on social media Monday.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member was set to tour in support of his book, Cat on the Road to Findout, which will release in the US on 7 October and was made available in the UK earlier in September. The book release won’t be impacted, Islam wrote, noting that “books don’t need visas!”

Islam is the latest in a string of international musicians and athletes impacted by visa issues, as fees have increased in the past year and processing times have slowed.

Islam wrote that his team waited months for visa approvals, but “at this point, the production logistics necessary for my show cannot be arranged in time”.

“I am really upset!” Islam wrote on social media. “Not least for my fans who have bought tickets and made travel plans to see me perform.”

Representatives of Islam did not immediately respond to the Associated Press’ request for comment.

The singer’s tour was set to start 2 October in Philadelphia and had various stops scheduled across the country for the rest of the month. His 8 October tour stop in Toronto, Canada, was also postponed.

The British singer-songwriter rose to fame in the 1960s and put his career on hold for two decades after converting to Islam in the late 1970s. He returned to secular music in the 2000s and had a six-city concert tour in North America in 2014.

Islam indicated the tour could be rescheduled if visas are approved, but those dates “would be some time away because of other travel fans”, he wrote.

The tour, announced in May, was described as a “portal” into the singer’s universe, offering an in-depth conversation on the memoir and acoustic performances of select songs, according to the website. Islam began the tour visiting several cities in the UK throughout September.

Islam wrote “hopefully, fans will be able to hop on the Peace Train route at some time in the future”.

The Utah governor, Spencer Cox, has called on people in the US to “stop shooting each other – that’s it” saying he makes that plea against political violence after being unable to “unsee” video of a sniper in his state killing rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.

Cox delivered those comments in an interview aired Sunday evening on the CBS program 60 Minutes, 18 days after Kirk’s shooting death at Utah Valley University (UVU) and one week from the Turning Point USA founder’s memorial service outside Phoenix.

The Republican politician told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that his fellow conservative accuse him “all the time” of wanting people to have a “kumbaya” moment – “to hold hands and just hug it out”.

“I’m not asking anybody to hold hands and hug it out – I’m not asking for that,” Cox said on the premiere of 60 Minutes’ 58th season. “I’m trying to get people to stop shooting each other – that’s it.”

Cox alluded to public discourse that sought to frame Kirk’s killing as having occurred during a war – not formally declared – being waged between Americans on opposite sides of the country’s political divide. He contended that those trying to agitate tempers amid that rhetorical climate – including and particularly on social media platforms – were “making mistakes”.

“The question I always ask when I hear people say … that we’re at war … [is] what does that mean?” Cox also remarked. “What is next? Who am I supposed to shoot now?”

Citing investigators’ interviews with people close to the suspected killer, Utah prosecutors have alleged Tyler Robinson murdered Kirk after becoming sick of what he perceived to be Kirk’s “hatred”. Investigators reported being told by his family that Robinson had become “more pro-gay and trans rights oriented” in the year prior to his arrest in connection with Kirk’s killing.

That was at least the third prominent instance of political violence in less than six months. The home of Pennsylvania Democratic governor Josh Shapiro was firebombed in April. And, on 14 June, related shootings killed Minnesota’s former House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, while wounding state senator John Hoffman – her fellow Democrat – and his wife, Yvette.

Cox said he, like many others in the US, could not avoid seeing video of Kirk being shot while speaking at UVU “on a loop over and over and over again”.

“And I can’t unsee it,” said Cox, who briefed the national media multiple times about Kirk’s killing early in the investigation into it. “I can’t stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes – that’s what I see.”

Cox said he learned Kirk had died at the hospital where he was taken after the shooting from an aide sent to the facility by the governor. According to Cox, he then called the White House to relay news of the death to Donald Trump, Kirk’s close ally.

Trump’s administration has since pledged to crack down on leftist groups who opposed Kirk’s views.

Asked if he was “not a Trump Republican,” Cox said “that depends”. He elaborated that had voted for Trump as the latter man successfully ran for a second presidency in November. But Cox pointed out that he did not support Trump when he ran for his first presidency in 2016 or lost re-election to Joe Biden four years later.

Pelley also gave Cox an opportunity to address being called “a national embarrassment” by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in the early aftermath of Kirk’s killing.

“That’s OK – we can have that debate,” Cox said. “There are some people that think I am a national embarrassment. And that’s OK, too.”

Middle Eastern and European leaders have expressed cautious support for Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza, backing that was tempered by scepticism from some in the territory.

The plan unveiled on Monday by Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas disarmament and a transitional government led by an international body.

By Tuesday morning, Netanyahu was already walking back on the plan, including a clause that says Israel will not occupy Gaza and its military will withdraw completely. He said the army “will remain in most of Gaza”.

Still, as the only US-backed option to end what a UN inquiry found this month was an ongoing genocide, the plan was welcomed in principle by leaders in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt, who said they were ready to cooperate with Washington to ensure its implementation.

It was clear, however, that Hamas remains a critical factor in whether Trump’s peace proposal gets off the ground. Experts and residents of Gaza said the absence of the group from negotiations and the plan’s demand that they renounce governance of the strip raised doubts about its viability.

“It’s clear that this plan is unrealistic,” Ibrahim Joudeh told the AFP news agency from southern Gaza. “It’s drafted with conditions that the US and Israel know Hamas will never accept. For us, that means the war and the suffering will continue.”

Abu Mazen Nassar was equally pessimistic, saying: “This is all manipulation. What does it mean to hand over all the prisoners without official guarantees to end the war? Hamas has lost us and drowned us in the flood it created.”

The plan did receive backing from some allies of the US who last week formally recognised Palestine as an independent state. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, called on Hamas to agree to the plan and “end the misery”, while France’s Emmanuel Macron said Hamas had no choice but to “follow this plan”.

Even the Spanish government – which has been one of the most vociferous European critics of Israel’s offensive – welcomed the plan and urged both sides to commit to ending the violence.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she encouraged “all parties to now seize this opportunity”, while the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, an Israel ally, said the plan was the “best chance” to end the war.

Diplomatic veterans of the Obama and Biden administrations also described it as a “good deal”. Brett McGurk, previously of the US national security council, said with Israel and the group of Arab and Islamic nations endorsing the plan, “all international pressure must now come down squarely on Hamas”.

Obama’s ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said that while there were still a lot of details to be worked out, Trump’s plan was “credible”, adding: “Next step is to get Hamas to accept it, which requires strong pressure on them from Qatar and Turkey.”

Under the details of the plan, a transitional authority – overseen and supervised by an international “board of peace” headed by Donald Trump – would take control of Gaza until the Palestinian Authority has completed a programme of “reform”.

The authority, which is nominally in charge of Palestinian affairs in the West Bank, welcomed Trump’s efforts to end the war, and called for a comprehensive deal that would pave the way for a “just peace on the basis of [a] two-state solution”.

The presence of the former UK prime minister Tony Blair on the “board of peace” raised eyebrows among many, with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, saying: “We’ve been under British colonialism already.”

“He has a negative reputation here. If you mention Tony Blair, the first thing people mention is the Iraq war,” Barghouti told the Washington Post.

In Israel though, there was cautious hope that the nearly two-year conflict could finally be drawing to a close.

In Tel Aviv, where protests calling for an end to the war and the return of hostages have been growing, Inbar Hayman said she was optimistic, but “afraid of being disappointed again”.

Gal Goren, whose parents were killed during the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, said: “We were very happy to hear what Trump said. We were happy to hear that Trump saw us, that he heard us calling for ending this war and bringing all the hostages … home.”

Less than 75km (47 miles) south in war-torn Gaza, where at least 30 people were reportedly killed by Israeli strikes on Monday, some also dared to hope.

Anas Sorour, a 31-year-old street vendor, told AFP: “Despite everything we’ve lived through and lost in this war … I still have hope. No war lasts for ever. This time I am very optimistic, and God willing it will be a moment of joy that makes us forget our pain and our anguish.”

But after almost two years of war and countless attempts at ceasefire deals for Gaza, every new announcement is still met with suspicion.

Mohammed al-Beltaji, a 47-year-old from Gaza City, summarised his views of the negotiations: “As always, Israel agrees then Hamas refuses – or the other way around. It’s all a game, and we, the people, are the ones paying the price.”

With Agence France-Presse