Washington “cautiously optimistic” about reviving Gaza talks… and Hamas delegation in Egypt

For the third week in a row, the Israeli army continues to close in on the northern Gaza Strip, blocking all main entrances with vehicles and dirt barriers, and isolating the area from Gaza City, under constant bombardment and bombing of homes. The Palestinian Telecommunications Company announced a total internet outage in the area.

Observers confirm that what is happening is the implementation of the generals’ plan, while the Israeli army ordered citizens, estimated to number more than 300,000 Palestinians, the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia to evacuate completely, and go south through the – so-called “safe corridor.”

Yesterday, civil defense teams in Gaza announced that the relief agency was unable to provide its services in the northern Gaza Strip after threats to their teams from the Israeli army.

Mark Ginsburg, a former American diplomat, said in an interview with Al-Hurra TV that the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, expressed that President Joe Biden was very concerned about the return of the Israeli army to to attack the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza because of the Hamas Movement implementing its terrorist activities against the Israeli army.

Ginsberg said that with this Israeli military operation, “the Palestinians have been forced to leave their places again due to attacks by Hamas and the Israeli army, and this is creating an even worse humanitarian disaster than the current situation,” he said.

Professor Chuck Freilich, former deputy national security adviser to Israel and a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, says that everything that is happening in Gaza now “caused by Hamas and not the Israeli army.” involved in continuing their terrorist attacks and targeting the Israeli army.” It has spread among civilians and is trying to reorganize itself militarily and politically, especially in the areas where the Israeli army has completed its operations.”

Freilich said in an interview with Al-Hurra TV that the Israeli army had finished their work in Jabalia before, but they had to return now because “Hamas has appeared there again, and nobody wants a lot of civilian casualties, but Hamas is the one responsible,” he said.

Mukhaymar Abu Saada, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University, spoke to Al-Hurra TV from Chicago, stressing the importance of “Israel fighting Hamas away from civilians,” so they don’t harm them. Gaza is “living in terrible conditions that have not happened for a whole year. “

Abu Saada said that the Jabalia camp sees killings and bombs around the clock, and that there is a siege on hospitals that can no longer receive more cases of infection, stressing that what Israel is doing in northern Gaza implementing a plan to “eliminate. and send the people away,” as he said.

More than a year after the start of the war, since October 6, the Israeli army has launched a new attack on the northern Gaza Strip, leaving 770 people dead within 19 days, according to the Civil Defense.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday accused Israel of planning to evacuate the Gaza Strip of its residents, “especially now in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, where the occupation forces are going to be starving the people,” stressing the need to “stop the attack. “That has been going on for more than a year after the unprecedented attack by the Hamas movement on the territory of Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Hamas attack left 1,206 dead, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse census based on official Israeli data, including hostages who were killed or died. in captivity. Of the 251 people who were kidnapped, 97 are still in Gaza, and the army announced that 34 of them are dead.

Qatar announced an upcoming meeting with American and Israeli negotiators in Doha, and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani explained that ties had been renewed with Hamas following the assassination of its political bureau chief, Yahya Sinwar, in an Israeli operation. in the southern Gaza Strip on October 16.

Then, Blinken, who is visiting Doha, said he expects negotiators to meet in the coming days, saying the United States is exploring “various options” to end put on the war in Gaza.

In Qatar, Blinken continues his eleventh trip to the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza, which spread to Lebanon last September and has intensified in recent days. who left