The United States presented on Friday, after two days of negotiations in Doha, an amended proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, but Hamas immediately rejected the “new conditions” it claimed were being set by Israel, amid mounting diplomatic pressure. with the aim of avoiding a regional military escalation.
The mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – announced the resumption of talks next week in Cairo, after a new compromise was presented in Doha on Friday to implement a ceasefire agreement.
The agreement “has never been this close”, assured US President Joe Biden, who spoke with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar.
The US president also called on all parties not to “undermine” the negotiations. “I think we have a chance,” Biden insisted to reporters, calling himself “optimistic.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is to travel to Israel today to seek to “make a deal” on the basis of the new proposal, according to the State Department.
But two Hamas officials told AFP that their organization rejects Israel’s “new conditions”.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, the war, which broke out with Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, has seen no respite and violence continues in the occupied West Bank, where a deadly attack by Jewish settlers has caused uproar.
After more than ten months of conflict, diplomatic efforts are also aimed at avoiding a response by Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, to the July 31 assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran, and the death, the day before, of the military leader of the Islamist Lebanese movement from an Israeli strike near Beirut.
The Israeli prime minister called on mediators to “put pressure” on Hamas, while Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called for the opposite during a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister, “direct and effective pressure” on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Welcoming his British counterparts David Lammy and French Stephane Cezournet in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he expects his allies to “join Israel” to “attack Iran” if Tehran attacks the country. of.
Cezournet called it “inappropriate to speak of a response (…) even a defensive one” at a time when diplomatic efforts are in full swing.
Iran will suffer “catastrophic” consequences if it attacks Israel, a senior US official has warned from his homeland.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah released a video – the authenticity of which AFP could not confirm – showing its members moving through large tunnels, where trucks appear to be carrying large rockets. In one image, a rocket launcher is aimed skyward through a hatch.
In Doha, Hamas did not take part in the negotiations, which were attended by the US and Israeli intelligence chiefs along with mediators, but is being kept informed of them.
Among the “new conditions” set by Israel and rejected by Hamas, one of the Palestinian organization’s officials mentioned the “maintenance of Israeli troops” along Gaza’s border with Egypt, as well as “a right of veto” on the release of some Palestinians prisoners.
The talks are based on a plan announced by Joe Biden on May 31, which initially calls for a six-week truce in which Israelis withdraw from densely populated Gaza and release Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians.
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