Indirect negotiations aimed at concluding a cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip are scheduled to resume today in Qatar, as the Palestinian enclave, besieged and devastated after more than ten months of war, continues to be hammered by the Israeli armed forces. forces.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which have been fighting in the narrow coastal strip of land since the Palestinian Islamist movement launched an unprecedented raid on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, is a demand made by almost the entire international community.
US President Joe Biden estimated on Tuesday that declaring a cease-fire could prevent an Iranian attack on Israel. Tehran has warned that there will be retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Iranian capital on July 31, which it blamed on Israel.
The outgoing US president insisted he “will not give up” on trying to achieve this goal even though negotiations have proved “difficult”.
The White House announced that the head of state and Kamala Harris, his vice president and Democratic presidential candidate in the November elections, were briefed by their advisers on national security issues in the “Situation Room”, a nerve center of the American state apparatus in cases international crises.
There is “no time to waste”, the US president’s special envoy, Amos Hoxtyn, said yesterday in Beirut, judging that the truce would help stop the practically daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli armed forces and the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, which is an ally of Hamas and Tehran.
What does the draft agreement provide for?
The new talks, following the invitation of the mediating countries – Qatar, the US and Egypt – are based on a proposal presented on May 31 by Mr. Biden. In its first phase, it provides for a six-week ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip and the release of Hamas hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli detention centers.
They will be held in the presence of CIA Director William Burns, according to a US source, as well as the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s spy and counter-intelligence agencies, respectively), according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The latter discussed a possible deal with US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday, Axios news website reported yesterday, citing US sources.
Hamas’ involvement remains uncertain. An official of the Palestinian Islamist movement said yesterday that the talks “with the mediators (…) have intensified”, repeating that Hamas “wants the implementation of the Biden plan and not to negotiate for the sake of negotiating”.
The hammering of Gaza continues
The Israeli armed forces meanwhile continue operations in the Gaza Strip. The civilian protection of the enclave reported shelling in Gaza City, Beit Lahia (north), Deir al-Bala (central), Khan Younis and Rafah (south).
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, which the US and EU designate as a terrorist organization after it attacked southern sectors of the Israeli territory on October 7, in which they lost the lives of 1,198 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 111 are still being held hostage in the Gaza Strip, but 39 are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military.
Israel’s large-scale military retaliatory operations have since killed at least 39,965 people in the enclave, according to the latest figures from Hamas’ health ministry.
In Lebanon, ten months of hostilities have claimed the lives of at least 570 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 118 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
Mediators have so far been able to secure only a week-long ceasefire in November. That agreement allowed the release of about a hundred hostages and in exchange 240 Palestinians.
In Israel, Abigail Ginzburg, an Israeli flight attendant, 22 years old, said yesterday that she was “very anxious” about the risk of an attack by Iran and in view of today’s negotiations.
Iran on Tuesday rejected a call from Western countries to abandon plans to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing of Ismail Haniya. The Islamic Republic’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen also threatened to avenge the death, like the one a few hours earlier, on the evening of July 30, of Hezbollah’s military wing leader Fouad Shukr in an Israeli bombardment. in a southern suburb of Beirut.
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