Hamas is preparing today to respond to a proposal to declare a ceasefire for several weeks in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the release of Israeli hostages, as part of indirect negotiations with Israel that have raised hopes amid the seven-week war. months.
After meeting yesterday Monday in Cairo with representatives of the governments of Egypt and Qatar, mediating countries, along with the US, a Hamas delegation left Cairo for Doha, where its political office is located, and will return to give response “as soon as possible,” according to an AFP source in the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Moreover, according to “Egyptian sources” cited by the Al-Qahera news website, widely believed to have ties to Egypt’s secret services, the delegation “will return with a written response to the proposal.”
In anticipation, US President Joe Biden — facing a wave of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses — called on the leaders of Qatar and Egypt to do “everything within their power to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas,” as in this he sees “the only obstacle to an immediate ceasefire”.
In Riyadh, the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, said he “hopes” that Hamas will give a positive response to what he says is an “extremely generous” offer “from Israel.”
The proposal calls for a “40-day ceasefire” and the “release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of these hostages,” added Britain’s foreign minister, David Cameron, also in the Saudi capital.
Since the outbreak of war, there has been only one ceasefire agreement, lasting seven days, in late November. He had allowed the release of some 80 hostages with Israeli or dual citizenship in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
After Riyadh, Mr. Blinken is expected in Israel today as part of a new tour of the region, aimed at boosting efforts to forge a new ceasefire in the besieged Palestinian enclave where a major humanitarian crisis is unfolding.
Rafah or ceasefire?
In Riyadh, Mr. Blinken also reiterated Washington’s opposition to a large-scale Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, at the southern edge of the Palestinian enclave, on the closed border with Egypt, which has turned into a sprawling refugee camp, home to nearly one and a half million Palestinians, with humanitarian and health conditions described as catastrophic.
Defying the concerns and warnings of capital cities and humanitarian organizations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on declaring his determination to order this operation, which he describes as necessary to “defeat” Hamas and free the hostages.
“If there is an agreement (such as a ceasefire) we will suspend the operation in Rafah,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Channel 12 over the weekend.
“We are asking the whole world to call for a permanent ceasefire, that is enough,” Abu Taha said yesterday, looking at his dead relatives at Najjar hospital in Rafah. In the city, displaced families suffer from the heat, without running water, barely protected from the sun under tents.
A mother, Ranin, complained that the water they drink is hot and that her children “can’t stand the heat, the flies and the mosquitoes anymore”, holding a baby in her arms with a face swollen from the bites.
The UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, warned that as temperatures rise again, “the risk of disease spreading increases”.
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardments killed at least forty Gazans yesterday. Three houses were hit in Rafa. In Gaza City, two houses were hit, killing at least six residents and injuring many others. In Nuseirat, after nightfall, a house was bombed, killing three people, among them a journalist.
The Israeli army announced yesterday that it suffered two casualties in central Gaza the day before Sunday.
“Hope”
The Egyptian government assured yesterday that it is “hopeful” that there will be a truce. But Zaher Jabarin, a member of the group of Hamas negotiators, told AFP that it was “too early to talk about a positive atmosphere in the negotiations.”
Hamas is demanding above all a “permanent ceasefire” in the enclave, which Israel rejects, the “complete withdrawal” of the Israeli army and a clear timetable for the start of reconstruction, he said.
According to media reports, Israel’s wartime government initially demanded the release of 40 hostages held in the Gaza Strip before allowing negotiators to lower that number.
According to at least one publication, Israel demands at least the release of women, whether they are in the military or not, and men who are over 50 or have health problems.
Yesterday, relatives of two Israeli hostages who appeared in a video released by Hamas on Saturday demanded their immediate release.
ICC arrest warrants?
That day, Hamas’ military arm launched an unprecedented raid in southern Israel that killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Another 250-plus people were abducted and taken to the Palestinian enclave. According to Israeli sources, 129 of them remain in the Gaza Strip, but at least 34 are believed to be dead.
At least 34,488 people, the vast majority of them women and children, have died in the broad military operation launched by Israel in retaliation in the Palestinian enclave, vowing to wipe out Hamas, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s health ministry, which the Israeli authorities call it a “terrorist” organization, as do the US and the EU.
Senior Israeli officials are concerned, according to press reports, such as a report by the Times of Israel, about the possibility of arrest warrants being issued against them by the International Criminal Court (ICC) because of the war in the Gaza Strip.
According to a report in the US news site Axios, Benjamin Netanyahu asked Joe Biden during a telephone conversation on Sunday to help prevent the issuance of arrest warrants that could target the defense minister and his chief of staff. general staff of national defense of Israel.
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