Washington.-Mediators in Gaza ceasefire talks said on Friday that two-day talks had concluded and they aimed to meet again in Cairo next week to seal a deal to end the fighting.
In a statement issued on Friday, the United States, Egypt and Qatar said the talks had been constructive and had taken place in a positive atmosphere. They presented both sides with a proposal and look forward to further working out the details of its implementation in the coming days.
International diplomacy to prevent the war in Gaza from spilling over into a wider regional conflict intensified on Friday, with the British and French foreign ministers making a joint trip to Israel as internationally brokered ceasefire talks in Qatar entered their second day.
The new push to end the war between Israel and Hamas came as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassed 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities, and fears remained high that Iran and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon would attack Israel in retaliation for the killings of top militant leaders.
International mediators believe the best hope for calming tensions would be an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the fighting and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné appeared hopeful after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Friday.
Lammy said Israeli officials told them they hoped they were close to sealing a deal. “As we approach 315 days of war, it is time to reach an agreement for the hostages to be returned, for aid to reach Gaza in the necessary quantities and for the fighting to stop,” Lammy said.
French Foreign Minister Stéphane Sejourne also called any action that destabilises the negotiations unacceptable. He and Lammy had sent very clear messages to all parties that this was a key moment “because it could lead to peace or war,” he said.
Katz said in a statement that he told his British and French counterparts that if Iran attacks Israel, Israel expects its allies to not only help it defend itself, but to join in attacking Iran.
He also warned Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, all of whom have attacked Israel since the Gaza war began, to stop the attacks.
“Iran is the head of the axis of evil, and the free world must stop it now before it is too late,” Katz said in X.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt began a new round of ceasefire talks in Qatar on Thursday.
Hamas, which was not directly involved in Thursday’s talks, accuses Israel of adding new demands to an earlier proposal that had U.S. and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle. Israel accuses Hamas of adding its own new demands.
Security spokesman John Kirby called the talks an important step. He said much work remained to be done given the complexity of the deal and that negotiators were focusing on its implementation.
A U.S. official briefed on Thursday’s talks called the discussion “constructive.” The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
On Friday, a Biden administration official not authorized to comment publicly said the second day of talks had resumed.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed the heavily guarded border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 250 to take to Gaza. More than 100 were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November, and about 110 are believed to remain inside Gaza, although Israeli authorities believe about a third of them are dead.
Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive has killed 40,005 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday, without saying how many were militants. Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Thursday that Israel had killed more than 17,000 Hamas militants in Gaza during the war, without providing evidence.
Diplomats had hoped a ceasefire agreement would persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah not to retaliate for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and Hamas’s top political leader in a blast in Tehran widely blamed on Israel.
Kirby said Iran has made preparations and could strike soon with little or no warning, and that its rhetoric should be taken seriously.
Mediators have spent months trying to hammer out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release the hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Both sides have agreed in principle to the plan that President Joe Biden announced on May 31. But Hamas has proposed amendments and Israel has suggested clarifications, leading each side to accuse the other of trying to thwart a deal.
Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands, which include a long-term military presence along the border with Egypt and a line dividing Gaza in two, where Palestinians returning home would be searched to root out militants.
Egypt’s foreign minister said on Friday that a ceasefire agreement was key to calming temperatures across the region.
“We will make every effort to reach an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as it is the basis for stopping the escalation,” Badr Abdelaty said during a trip to Lebanon.
In a clear message to Israel, Hezbollah on Friday released a video with Hebrew and English subtitles showing underground tunnels where trucks carrying long-range missiles are moving.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing military matters, said the missiles in the video have a range of about 140 kilometers (86 miles) and can reach the deepest parts of Israel.
Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets, missiles and drones that the group says give it the ability to strike any part of Israel. Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8 and says it will only stop when the war in Gaza ends.Infobae.
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2024-08-20 09:21:25
