World
Indonesian government scheme linked to food poisoning outbreak. Trump sends National Guard to Chicago. Japan’s Iron Lady. By Jonathan Pearlman.
Peace deal progress: Israel, Hamas agree to first phase
Great power rivalry
Gaza: United States President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire and the return of hostages after concluding the first phase of a deal to end the war in Gaza and to bring “peace in the Middle East”.
The initial phase will involve Israel withdrawing troops, releasing Palestinian prisoners and boosting aid flows. Hamas is due to release its 20 living hostages within 72 hours, from Sunday or Monday, and then release the bodies of 28 dead hostages in stages.
“This is more than Gaza,” Trump told Fox News. “This is peace in the Middle East, and it’s an incredible thing.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump and invited him to address the Knesset, saying he planned to “continue to achieve all our goals and expand peace with our neighbours”.
“A big day for Israel,” he posted on X.
Hamas said on Telegram it supported the deal, saying it will remain “faithful to our pledge and will not abandon our people’s national rights, including freedom, independence, and self-determination”.
The deal was due to be signed in Egypt on Thursday and was expected to be followed by further talks on a second phase of the ceasefire. But it was not clear whether the two sides had agreed to all the elements of a 20-point plan proposed by Trump last week.
During initial negotiations over the plan in Egypt early this week, Hamas said it would not agree to disarm or to allow Gaza to be placed under international governance. Israel agreed to release 250 Palestinian life-sentence prisoners, whose identities were yet to be confirmed, as well as 1700 people detained from Gaza.
The news of the initial deal was welcomed by leaders around the world. In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong said in a statement the agreement was a “much needed step towards peace”.
The deal came almost exactly two years after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, in which 1200 people died and 251 were taken hostage, marking the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Since then, Israel’s attacks have devastated Gaza, leaving more than 67,000 people dead, according to local officials, and more than 500,000 facing extreme hunger. About 78 per cent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed.
Welcoming the announcement of the deal on Thursday, Montaser Bahja, a Gaza resident who had fled to Khan Younis with his family, told The New York Times he felt “joy for the end of the war and the killing, and sorrow for everything we’ve lost”.
The neighbourhood
Indonesia: President Prabowo Subianto is continuing to roll out his signature program to provide free meals to children and pregnant women despite a mass outbreak of food poisoning linked to the scheme.
The program, which aims to feed about 83 million people, began operating for schoolchildren in January and expanded to 30 million people in September.
There are calls to suspend the scheme, however, after it was linked to more than 10,000 cases of food poisoning. Students have reported finding maggots and shards of glass in their meals.
Last week the government said it would continue to expand the scheme but will close kitchens linked to poisoning cases and conduct stricter monitoring.
The outbreak appears to be worsening, with more than 1800 cases reported last week, according to the Indonesian Education Watch Network (JPPI), a watchdog.
JPPI’s national coordinator Ubaid Matraji told The Jakarta Post on Monday the increase in cases showed recent moves to close kitchens after outbreaks were ineffective.
“The government must suspend all free meal kitchens before more people fall ill,” he said.
Prabowo held a cabinet meeting last weekend to discuss the scheme and ordered additional food safety measures, including equipping kitchens with food hygiene testing kits, clean water filters and bacteria prevention tools.
He defended the program, saying it had provided more than one billion meals and that the “deviation” – or rate of illnesses – was “just 0.0017 per cent – quite a proud achievement”.
On Monday, JPPI and other advocacy groups said operating the scheme could be a criminal offence and that families and schools had reported being pressured not to raise complaints.
Prabowo has faced heavy criticism as he has continued with the program despite introducing austerity measures, including cuts to health and education. The program is expected to cost US$28 billion to 2029.
Democracy in retreat
United States: Donald Trump sent National Guard troops to Chicago this week, despite the objections of the city’s mayor and the Illinois governor, as he moved to expand his military deployments to Democrat-led cities across the country.
On Tuesday, a contingent of National Guard troops from Texas arrived in Chicago on orders from the White House, which said they were needed to address rampant crime and to support federal agents who have been deporting suspected undocumented immigrants. Trump has already moved to deploy troops to Washington, DC, Memphis and Los Angeles. Last weekend a judge blocked his attempt to send them to Portland.
Authorities in cities where the troops have been deployed have denied claims that crime is out of control and that federal immigration officials have faced “terrorist assault” from local protesters.
Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a statement this week, “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion.”
Republican governors have backed the deployments, saying crime rates are rising and local police forces have been depleted.
A poll by CBS News and YouGov, published last week, found 58 per cent of Americans oppose Trump’s deployment of guard troops to US cities. The National Guard is a state-based military force that can be deployed by the president or governors and is typically used during natural disasters, wars or outbreaks of civil unrest but not for domestic law enforcement.
US District Judge Karin Immergut, who blocked the deployment of guard soldiers in Portland, ruled recent protests against deportations did not appear to be “significantly violent or disruptive” and were not part of an “attempt to overthrow the government”.
“This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law,” said Immergut, who was appointed by Trump.
Spotlight: Japan’s Iron Lady
Sanae Takaichi, a former heavy metal drummer and ultra-conservative politician who opposes same-sex marriage and supports tougher restrictions on migrants, is set to become Japan’s first female prime minister.
Takaichi defeated four rivals to become leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics for 70 years but has faced declining support due to a sluggish economy and concerns about demographic decline. The party has had five leaders in five years.
Takaichi, a 64-year-old former television host, has likened herself to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, telling a group of schoolchildren recently: “My goal is to become the Iron Lady.”
She opposes equal pay and allowing married couples to have different surnames, and supports the imperial family’s male-only succession, though she has recently backed tax deductions for babysitting fees and for companies that provide childcare services. She is hawkish on China and supports a stronger Japanese military.
Takaichi has said she wants to boost the number of women in cabinet, but analysts say her record on social issues suggests she has little inclination to combat Japan’s entrenched gender inequalities.
Only two of Japan’s 47 prefectural governors are women, and only about 15 per cent of lower house members are women.
The Diet is set to confirm Takaichi as prime minister on October 15.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on October 10, 2025 as "Peace deal progress: Israel, Hamas agree to first phase".
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