Hope strengthens. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas must give its response this Monday to a proposed truce in the war with Israel in Gaza, besieged and threatened with famine, associated with a release of hostages.
A tripartite meeting is to take place in Cairo between Egypt, Qatar and Hamas, the delegation of which will be led by Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the political wing of the movement for the Gaza Strip and very involved in the negotiations, indicated a senior Hamas official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“No major problem”
“The atmosphere is positive, barring new obstacles posed by Israel,” an official of the Islamist movement who requested anonymity told AFP. “No major issues are raised in the comments and requests that Hamas will submit regarding the content of the proposal” during this meeting, he added.
This is a proposal developed by Egypt and amended by Israel. It was presented in response to Hamas which, in mid-April, insisted on a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a hypothesis that Israel refuses to consider. The details of the Israeli proposal have not been filtered but according to the American news site Axios, which cites Israeli officials, it includes the desire to discuss “the establishment of lasting calm” in Gaza.
The meeting in Cairo comes almost seven months after the start of the war, triggered by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel on October 7. Egypt, Qatar and the United States are trying, so far in vain, to convince the two belligerents to stop fighting. At the end of November, a one-week truce, however, allowed the release of 80 hostages held by Hamas against 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
Internal pressure on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to increase, such as a new demonstration on Saturday evening which brought together thousands of people in Tel Aviv to demand the release of the hostages kidnapped on October 7.
Rafah operation in the balance
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected this week in Israel, where he last visited in March, as well as in Jordan, the US State Department announced on Sunday. But first he is in Saudi Arabia on Monday for a special meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the conflict.
During this two-day summit bringing together senior Arab and Western leaders in Riyadh, the head of Saudi diplomacy, Prince Faisal bin Farhane, affirmed on Sunday that “the situation in Gaza is clearly a catastrophe from all points of view, humanitarian , but also a total failure of the existing political system to deal with the crisis.”
Invited to the event, the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas called on Washington to prevent the ground offensive that Israel claims to be preparing against the town of Rafah, in the south of Gaza, already regularly bombed, and where crowds one and a half million Palestinians, mainly displaced people.
“America is the only country capable of preventing Israel from committing this crime,” he declared, fearing that such an operation would be “the greatest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people.” “If there is an agreement (truce), we will suspend the operation in Rafah,” however, declared Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday to Israeli channel N12.
Israeli strikes in Rafah
During the night from Sunday to Monday, three nighttime Israeli strikes in Rafah killed 16 people, hospital sources told AFP. Two other strikes left seven dead in Gaza City (center), according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The Israeli army said on Sunday it had struck “dozens of terrorist targets” in central Gaza. And throughout Saturday, the Israeli navy targeted Hamas targets and provided support to troops deployed in the center of the territory, the army said Sunday.
In the Red Sea, American forces also shot down five aerial drones on Sunday which presented an “imminent threat” to merchant shipping, according to the American Military Command for the Middle East (Centcom). Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control large swaths of Yemen and support Hamas, have been carrying out attacks since November on ships they believe are linked to Israel.
