[ad_1]
Amid ongoing violence in the Gaza war and faltering ceasefire talks, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to push for a ceasefire, while a senior Hamas official said the talks were merely implementing “U.S. orders.”
A Gaza ceasefire failed on Sunday as Israel’s under-pressure prime minister and Hamas militants traded accusations, while top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to push for a deal.
The U.S. secretary of state, making his ninth visit to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel and sparked the Gaza war in October, will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.
Diplomats say the Gaza deal could help avert a wider conflict, with one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, saying it came at a “particularly critical time”.
The official said Blinken’s goal was to “put pressure on all sides that it is very important to get the remaining things done as quickly as possible.”
Ahead of ceasefire talks in Qatar last Thursday and Friday, Hamas called on mediators — rather than more negotiations — to implement a framework proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden in late May.
Biden, in brief comments to reporters on Sunday, said a ceasefire “is still possible” and that the United States “is not going to give up.”
The new U.S. compromise proposal came after talks in Qatar between U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators, leading Hamas on Sunday to accuse Netanyahu of obstructing negotiations.
Hamas said the proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions, particularly his rejection of a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and his insistence on the continued occupation of the Nezarim Junction, Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphia Corridor.”
Israel considers the latter two sites crucial to preventing any weapons from flowing into the Gaza Strip, while the Nezarim junction is located at a strategic point between north and south Gaza.
The Islamic Movement said in a statement that Netanyahu “bears full responsibility for obstructing the efforts of the mediators, preventing an agreement from being reached, and bears full responsibility for the lives of the hostages in Gaza.”
Hamas officials have repeatedly accused Netanyahu of blocking the deal.
Western ally Jordan, supporters of the hostages protesting in Israel and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu to reach a deal.
Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s ruling coalition oppose any ceasefire.
– The stakes have been raised –
Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that pressure must be kept on Hamas.
“Hamas has remained intransigent to this day. It has not even sent representatives to the Doha talks. Therefore, pressure should be directed at Hamas and (Yahya) Sinwar, not the Israeli government,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting. Sinwar is the head of Hamas.
On Tuesday, Blinken will travel to Cairo, where ceasefire talks are set to resume in the coming days.
Biden said the framework, proposed by Israel, would freeze fighting for an initial six-week period, during which Israeli hostages would be swapped for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid would enter the besieged Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Saturday that Israeli negotiators were “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a Gaza ceasefire agreement.
Mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt also reported progress.
Ceasefire talks have been ongoing on and off for months, but no agreement has been reached so far.
But the situation has become increasingly dire since the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, in late July, and a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip exacerbated by fears of a polio outbreak.
Samah Dib, 32, said Israel’s evacuation order “reduced the safe zone” in the southern part of the region and there was “no more space” for displaced Palestinians.
Some people “are left sleeping on the streets,” clean water is scarce and food in the markets is “very expensive and we have no money,” said Dib, who, like nearly all Gazans, is displaced.
As efforts to reach a long-term ceasefire drag on, violence has intensified in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hamas’s Iran-backed ally Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily during the war, with the two sides again exchanging fire on Sunday.
The roar of tanks
Rescuers from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Civil Defence reported that Israel’s bombing of the town of Deir el-Balah and air strikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp killed 11 people.
The latest killings brought the death toll in Gaza to 40,099, according to the Ministry of Health, which does not release specific details of civilian and militant deaths.
The war, sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The Israeli military said its troops continued operations in central and southern Gaza and had “eliminated” militants in the Rafah area on Gaza’s border with Egypt.
In the Israeli-designated security zone of Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, 44-year-old Lina Saleha said with fear that she could hear “continuous roar of artillery fire” and the roar of tanks “getting closer and closer.”
An Israeli man has been killed in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, a hospital said, three days after a deadly settler attack on a nearby Palestinian village.
In Lebanon, the United Nations said three peacekeepers were slightly injured in an explosion in the south of the country.
Iran and its regional allies have vowed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, for which Israel has not claimed responsibility, and an Israeli attack on a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
The U.S. official said U.S. officials have heard indirectly that Iran “wants to see a ceasefire, they don’t want to see an escalation in the region.”
Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas offensive, 111 remain in Gaza, including 39 who the military says are dead. More than 100 were released during a week-long ceasefire in November.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club watchdog group said Israeli forces have detained “more than 10,000 Palestinians” in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war and the annexation of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967.
burs-ami-it/mtp/smw
[ad_2]
Source link
