Jerusalem, Aug 18 (EFE).- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel on Sunday for what will be his ninth visit to the country since the war with Hamas broke out on October 7, with the aim of promoting a ceasefire agreement that, after months of negotiation, finally seems close to being achieved.
Blinken arrives after a two-day meeting between Israel’s negotiating team and the mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – in Doha, to fine-tune the details of an agreement that would allow stopping the escalation of tension in the region, free the hundred Israeli hostages still in Gaza, and allow the massive entry of much-needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
Washington believes the deal could be reached as early as next week, even though the Islamist group Hamas, which rules Gaza, has not participated in the Doha meetings and has instead demanded the implementation of the draft announced by US President Joe Biden at the end of May.
According to a high-ranking Hamas source who spoke to EFE, the latest US proposal for a truce agreement, discussed in Doha, proposes maintaining a “reduced presence” of the Israeli army in the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, which runs along the Gaza border with Egypt, and Israel would not have to completely withdraw from the enclave, points that the Islamist group rejects.
Meanwhile, an Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday to hold meetings with Egyptian intelligence with the aim of finding “common ground” on “some issues” before resuming negotiations next week, an Egyptian intelligence source told EFE.
According to the source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, the Israeli negotiating team will discuss a series of common issues with its Egyptian counterpart, although he did not specify what these are, despite the fact that the Israeli army’s presence in the Philadelphia Corridor is on the table.
Netanyahu warns: “We are negotiating, not giving in”
Just this Sunday, shortly before Blinken’s arrival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who many in his own country accuse of torpedoing the negotiations with new demands – made it clear that Israel is “negotiating, not giving in” to Hamas.
“There are things we can be flexible on and there are things we can’t, and we insist on those. We are very good at differentiating between the two,” the president said.
Netanyahu, who urged the mediating countries to put pressure on Hamas and not Israel, is standing firm on two key points: not ceasing the military offensive until the Islamist group is dismantled and not withdrawing his troops from the Philadelphia Corridor, the Israeli prime minister’s office said.
Israel insists that the points it brought to the table in Doha are based on the framework proposed by Biden in May, but Hamas continues to claim that what was discussed in the last round does not comply with the original proposal and that it gives rise to new Israeli demands with US complicity.
The international community is broadly supporting the signing of a ceasefire after more than 10 months of war that has caused more than 40,000 deaths, 92,000 injuries and 1.9 million displaced people in the devastated Gaza Strip, where 111 Israeli hostages are still being held, of whom at least 39 are believed to have died.
Israel enters Deir al Balah
Despite the push for negotiations, the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues, and on Sunday the troops extended their operations to parts of Khan Yunis (south) and, for the first time, the town of Deir al Balah (center), where thousands of Gazans have taken refuge since the offensive against Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza, began.
“The Seventh Brigade Combat Team has expanded its activity to the outskirts of Deir al-Balah,” the army said in a statement.
Claiming that the area has been used by Palestinian militants to launch rockets into Israeli territory, the army ordered the evacuation of the east of the town last Friday “to mitigate the damage to the civilian population and allow them to leave the combat zone.”
Deir al-Balah had not been the target of a large-scale ground offensive like those suffered by other major cities in the Palestinian enclave, and is also an important reception point for displaced people (90% of Gazans are displaced) as well as the centre of operations for numerous humanitarian organisations.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry said on Tuesday that at least 25 people had been killed and 72 others wounded in the past 24 hours in Gaza, bringing the official death toll since the start of the war to 40,099 and the number of wounded to 92,609.
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2024-08-20 18:23:36
