Gaza Ceasefire, Trump's Middle East Peace Plan, Letitia James Indicted

This morning in Gaza, there were no sounds of Israeli airstrikes for the first time in months.

President Trump promises a deal he brokered will mean lasting peace.

The next 72 hours are key.

Why are so many Palestinians skeptical?

I'm Layla Faldel.

That's A.

Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.

President Trump is planning to head to Egypt this weekend, so he'll be there as Israel and Hamas implement the first part of the plan.

It's really peace in the Middle East.

The deal is still fragile, and there are also questions of what's next and why a small group of U.S.

troops are part of that equation.

Plus, New York's Attorney General Letitia James was indicted on bank fraud and false statement charges.

Trump has publicly demanded his Attorney General prosecute James and other perceived political foes.

Now, the Justice Department is doing just that.

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For the first time in seven months, people in Gaza woke up with no Israeli airstrikes overhead.

Today marks the start of the first phase of a ceasefire that President Trump says will be a strong and lasting peace.

It comes after Israel's government approved Trump's plan for a hostage exchange deal.

We're joined by NPR international correspondent Ayabat Trawi in Dubai to explain what's happening.

So tell us what exactly the situation is in Gaza with the ceasefire.

So this morning, A, there was still some confusion.

People in Gaza were fired on by Israeli troops when they tried to walk along a main road leading from the south to Gaza City in the north.

And it also sounded like this in the center of Gaza City.

That's the sound of an Israeli drone buzzing overhead.

But by noon local time, the Israeli military announced they had pulled back from deep inside Gaza to an agreed-upon line, and that means the start of the ceasefire.

Immediately, we saw crowds in Gaza rush back up that main coastal road again to head back to their homes.

But many will find that their homes are gone now.

Israel's recent offensive on the city destroyed thousands of buildings, including over a dozen high-rise towers, and it displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Now, NPR's reporter in Gaza City, Anis Baba, also saw police momentarily take position at a main square in the city.

That is something Gaza's interior ministry could not do before because they were targeted by Israel and they were seen as an arm of Hamaz.

Okay, now the releasing of hostages and detainees, when does that start?

Well, Hamaz has 72 hours from when this ceasefire comes into effect to release the hostages, and that began at noon local time.

So the clock is ticking on them to release the 20 hostages that are believed to still be alive and any bodies of hostages in their possession.

But there are bodies that will need more time to retrieve.

Israel also will begin releasing many Palestinian detainees and prisoners immediately after that first hostage release.

So we expect these exchanges to happen by Monday.

All right.

It's probably understandable that the first hours of this ceasefire are delicate times, but skepticism also, too, whether Trump's plan will lead to a permanent end of the war.

So tell us what you know about the details of the deal that was signed last night.

Well, yeah, and there is skepticism because the two previous U.S.-backed ceasefire deals in which Hamas released hostages were broken, and we saw Israel return to war.

But this time, Trump says this deal is about more than Gaza.

He says it is about Mideast peace and he's given his guarantees that with the release of all the hostages, this war will end.

Now, NPR has seen a copy of the first page of the deal that was signed in Egypt last night by mediators, Hamz and others.

It only refers to this first phase of the deal, which is focused on releasing hostages, but it states clearly that the war will immediately end upon approval by Israel's government.

And that vote happened last night in Israel in the presence of White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

But again, this document only lays out details of this first phase of the ceasefire, not what comes next.

And that is where there is skepticism and a lot of details to be worked out.

Currently, Israeli forces still control over half of Gaza, even after today's initial pullback.

All right.

So in the next 72 hours, what are you looking to see?

Beyond the release of the hostages and prisoners, we're also looking to see if the Rafah border, that border between Egypt and Gaza, opens up to allow in more aid and heavy machinery to retrieve bodies, including those of the hostages, but also Palestinians buried under rubble of airstrikes.

We're looking to see hundreds of U.N.

aid trucks entering Gaza to reverse severe malnutrition and starvation.

And we're expecting to see President Trump in Egypt and Israel this Sunday, which is a really clear sign that this is his ceasefire plan to see through.

All right, that's NPR international correspondent Ayabatrawi in Dubai.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, A.

The U.S.

is playing a big role in keeping the ceasefire together as 200 American troops are going to the Middle East to oversee the implementation of the deal.

President Trump is going to Egypt to cement the deal he brokered between Israel and Hamas as they're set to carry out the first part of the agreement.

I think it's going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace.

But senior White House officials are advising that the deal is still fragile and there are still parts of the plan that could go wrong.

NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shibaram joins us now.

A lot of elements of this plan are still being sorted through.

What are officials worried about?

Well, good morning, guys.

Senior White House officials said yesterday on a call with reporters that there's still a lot of involvement and work to do to make sure there aren't misunderstandings between the two sides.

They said this is a very delicate time.

There's a short window here where Israeli troops retreat from parts of Gaza, the hosage release, and the Palestinian prisoner release is supposed to take place.

But the even bigger question is what happens next and what is the U.S.

involvement going to look like?

And like you mentioned, these officials last night said that the U.S.

is sending about 200 troops to the region.

They're going to be part of what's called an ISF or an international stabilization force, which was created in part of Trump's peace plan.

So their role is oversight to make sure that there aren't any violations of the agreement, according to White House officials.

And they'll be working alongside with Egyptian forces, as well as forces from Qatar and Turkey and the UAE, and keeping those governments, as well as the Israeli government, informed about what they're seeing.

Will any of those U.S.

troops go to Gaza?

White House officials said the U.S.

forces are not intended to go into Gaza, but they weren't at this point specific about where troops would be stationed.

That plan is still being developed.

Okay, so in the meantime, what has the president been saying about the agreement?

Well, the president's been pretty elated about all of this.

He held a cabinet meeting yesterday and talked at length about getting this deal done and repeatedly said that this deal meant peace in the region.

It's amazing.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

I've been very much involved.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

But

it's really peace in the Middle East.

And speaking of Trump's involvement, I mean, White House officials said he was involved at many points in the negotiations, that he would even call in himself during the talks to talk with some of the interlocutors.

I will say, though, that there are some elements of this agreement that are still a little bit unclear.

Yesterday, for example, a reporter asked what would happen if Hamas didn't return all the hostages.

Right now, there are believed to be 48 hostages and 20 are believed to be alive.

Trump said some of the bodies would be hard to find, but quote, we're going to do the best we can.

And he didn't really get into what the consequences of what might happen.

The other thing that Trump is still a little bit unclear on is how Gaza will be rebuilt.

He said that wealthy Arab nations would be part of the rebuilding process, but White House officials said yesterday that no financial commitments have been made yet from those nations.

Okay, we mentioned earlier that the president plans to travel to the region.

What do we know about those plans?

Yeah, so Trump said that he's trying to leave on Sunday to travel to the region.

It's not exactly clear yet where he's going, but he said he'd most likely be in Egypt, where those negotiations are taking place.

And he was also invited by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

And Trump said he hopes to be there when the hostages are released, which is potentially Monday or Tuesday.

So still firming up some of the details of where and when this trip takes place, but the presence of President Trump on the ground speaks to how much of a heavy hand he's had in this process.

All right, that's NPR's deepest shiver on.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

The Justice Department followed President Trump's public calls and brought charges against his top rivals.

Yeah, New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted on bank fraud and false statement charges.

This comes after the same office indicted former FBI director James Comey.

President Trump replaced the top federal prosecutor there with one of his former lawyers, and that's the person who secured this indictment.

NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now.

Ryan, what more can you tell us about the charges against James and the prosecutors who are bringing this case on?

Well, as Layla just mentioned, James faces two charges here, one count of bank fraud, one count of false statements to a financial institution.

And the indictment alleges that James bought a house in 2020 in Norfolk, Virginia, but prosecutors say she falsely falsely claimed it as a second residence to get better terms on her mortgage.

And the indictment says, with those more favorable terms, she would have saved a total of almost $19,000 over the life of the loan.

Okay, now the indictment was handed up by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.

So that's the same place where the former FBI director James Comey was indicted just a few weeks ago.

That's right.

And there's been a huge amount of turmoil in that U.S.

attorney's office there in the past few weeks because of the Comey case and this case against James.

The career DOJ attorney who had been the top prosecutor there had basically concluded after lengthy investigations that the evidence in the separate cases against Comey and James was too weak to bring charges.

The White House didn't like that.

They pushed that prosecutor out.

In his place, President Trump installed Lindsay Halligan, an insurance lawyer who had once served as Trump's personal attorney, but she has no prosecutorial experience.

Days later, Halligan secured the indictment against Comey, and now a few weeks on, she presented the case yesterday against James to the grand jury.

Now, these two indictments against Letitia James and James Comey came after President Trump publicly called on the Justice Department to prosecute them.

And that has alarm bells ringing that Trump is using the Justice Department, weaponizing it to target his perceived political enemies.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Now, nationwide, people might know who James Comey is, but maybe not Letitia James as much.

So, what is Trump's issue with Letitia James?

So, when James campaigned to become New York's Attorney General, she vowed to investigate Trump.

Once she was in office, she did exactly that.

Ultimately, she sued Trump and his company for inflating the value of some of their assets.

She won that case in court, a massive $450 million judgment, although that financial penalty was later tossed out on appeal.

But Trump has repeatedly lashed out at her during the presidential campaign last year.

For example, he said that she should be arrested and punished.

And then in a social media post last month, Trump urged the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to go after James and other political foes, saying that they were guilty and that justice must be served.

Has James said anything in response to all this?

She put out a video on social media.

She called the indictment a continuation of Trump's weaponization of the justice system.

She also said this.

These charges are baseless,

and the president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.

James said she's being targeted because she did her job as New York State Attorney General.

She said she stands behind her office's investigation in the civil fraud suit against Trump.

And she said she's not afraid and that she is going to continue to do her job.

All right, that's NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas.

Ryan, thanks.

Thank you.

And that's Up First for Friday, October 10th.

I'm E.

Martinez.

And I'm Leila Falden.

President Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations.

And since he took office in January, ICE have carried out some dramatic and shocking raids to try to meet that goal.

Things have shifted in a way unlike anything I've seen in the 20 years that I've been doing this work.

This weekend on the Sunday story from Up First, how immigration enforcement is changing under the Trump administration.

Listen to the Sunday story right here in the Up First podcast.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Rebecca Rossman, Jerry Holmes, Anna Yukonenoff, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Martha Ann Overland.

It was produced by Ziad Buch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange.

Our executive producer is Jay Shaler.

Join us again on Monday.

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