Talks ahead of the declaration of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which will be accompanied by the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, there are today some signs that they are progressing, against the background of intensifying concerns that famine will develop around the holding large-scale ground operation in Rafah, on the closed border with Egypt, where more than 1.5 million people are trapped.
Israel’s intelligence chief, Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials were expected to meet in Doha yesterday to discuss it, an AFP source with knowledge of the matter said.
According to US news website Axios, “positive” discussions took place and Israeli negotiators will remain in Doha to continue “detailed” talks with mediators from Qatar and Egypt.
The State Department, for its part, announced today that the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, will be tomorrow Wednesday in Saudi Arabia and the day after Thursday in Egypt to contribute to the effort to remove obstacles.
Israel announced it would send a delegation to Doha, without specifying when, on Friday. The development followed what appeared to be a compromise proposal by Hamas, which said it was willing to accept a six-week truce, while it had long called for a permanent ceasefire.
“We have accepted a partial withdrawal (of the Israeli army) from the Gaza Strip before any exchange takes place and, after the initial phase, a complete withdrawal,” Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said yesterday. In the first phase “there will be a complete cessation of military operations”, he added, referring to the talks which may continue for “a few more days”.
List
More than 250 people were abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip during an unprecedented incursion by Hamas’ military arm into southern Israel on October 7, which killed more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a French count. Agency based on official Israeli data.
In the Israeli military operation launched in retaliation, more than 31,700 people have lost their lives, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
Obstacles to close negotiations include the status of the hostages and the identities of the Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for them. More than 130 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip, but 32 of them are believed to be dead, according to sources in Israel, who are demanding a nominal list of those still alive.
However, the Palestinian Islamist movement counters that it does not know who are “alive or dead” and for its part asks to be given the opportunity to decide which Palestinian prisoners will be released.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under a lot of pressure from some of the families of the hostages, who demand an immediate deal, and on the other from far-right members of his government, who reject any possibility of agreeing to release a large number of Palestinian prisoners.
The road to Rafa
During a telephone conversation, the first in over a month, with US President Joe Biden, Mr Netanyahu reiterated his determination to “achieve all the objectives of the war” in the Gaza Strip, including “the elimination of Hamas ».
Despite international pressure, Israel is preparing to launch a ground operation in Rafah, where, according to the UN, nearly 1.5 million Palestinians have found refuge, most of them forcibly displaced, many more than once.
Early this morning, the Hamas Health Ministry announced that 78 people were killed overnight in the Gaza Strip, 15 of them in a residence in Rafah.
Carrying out a major ground operation in the city would be a “mistake”, said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the American presidency, yesterday, noting, however, that Israel will not proceed until there are, “in the coming days”, talks about it.
US President Joe Biden has asked for an Israeli delegation to go to Washington to discuss how Hamas could be targeted “without a large-scale ground attack on Rafah,” he said via X (the former Twitter). He also reiterated that he wants an immediate ceasefire for “several weeks” as part of an agreement that would allow the release of hostages and an increase in “aid” to the Gaza Strip.
“Famine”
The great humanitarian devastation caused by the war and the famine, still concentrated in the north but threatening the entire population of the Gaza Strip, are of increasing concern.
Israel has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip since the first days of the war and controls the entry of humanitarian aid. It arrives mainly through Egypt at Rafah, but they are completely insufficient to meet the enormous needs of the population. And it is very difficult to reach the north, where some 300,000 people are currently, according to the United Nations.
One in two residents of Gaza – or 1.1 million people – is experiencing a “catastrophic” food situation, especially in the northern part of the enclave, UN agencies warned yesterday, with the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to speak of “imminent famine”.
The Gaza Strip has turned into an “open-air cemetery,” EU foreign policy chief Giuseppe Borrell said, adding that famine “is being used as a weapon of war.”
Fierce fighting broke out in the heart of Gaza City on Monday, and shelling took place in the area around and inside Al Shifa Hospital, the largest of the enclave, which the Israeli army had already captured in an assault on November 15, before withdrawing.
The Israeli military said it had killed dozens of Palestinian militants and captured “more than 200” as part of its raid on the hospital, which it said was launched due to “information” that “high-ranking” Hamas was using it for military purposes.
In addition, Washington said it was confirming the death last week of the deputy chief of Hamas’s military arm, Marwan Issa, its highest-ranking official to be killed since the outbreak of war.
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