No deal…yet. Representatives of Palestinian Hamas and Israel left Cairo “after two days of negotiations” aimed at obtaining a truce in the ongoing war in Gaza for seven months, Al-Qahera News, close to Egyptian intelligence, reported on Thursday. .
Efforts by Egypt and other mediating countries, namely Qatar and the United States, “continue to bring the two sides’ points of view closer together,” Al-Qahera News added, citing an Egyptian Source from high level.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday that around 80,000 people had fled Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, since Monday, when Israel ordered Palestinians living in the east of the city to evacuate. “The price these families are paying is unbearable,” says UNRWA on the social network X, specifying that “no place is safe” in the Gaza Strip.
Alongside Qatar and Egypt, the United States is mediating which has been trying for months to convince Israel and Hamas to conclude a truce intended to allow in particular a pause in the war and the release of Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons against hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its bloody attack in southern Israel on October 7. The indirect negotiations begun on Wednesday were intended to make it possible to reach an agreement and avoid the announced assault on Rafah.
In Washington, President Joe Biden acknowledged, in an interview with CNN, that “civilians were killed in Gaza because of” American bombs, and for the first time set conditions for military aid to Israel. “If they enter Rafah, I will not deliver to them the weapons that have always been used (…) against cities,” he declared. Israel’s ambassador to the UN on Thursday said this threat was “difficult to hear and very disappointing”.
