More than 200 days after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas says it is “studying” an Israeli counter-proposal for a truce, which could coincide with the release of hostages. An Egyptian delegation also arrived in Israel to discuss a “comprehensive framework for a ceasefire” in Gaza.
Hamas announced on Saturday that it was “studying” an Israeli counter-proposal for a truce in the fighting in Gaza combined with the release of hostages, a new development in the talks that Egypt is trying to restart. “Today, Hamas received the official response from the Zionist occupation (name given to Israel, editor’s note) to our position which had been given to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13,” declared the N.2 of the Hamas’ political branch for Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya. “The movement will study this proposal and submit its response once its study is completed,” he added in a statement released early Saturday.
Hamas indicated in a statement on April 13 that it had submitted its response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators on a proposed truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip, insisting on a permanent ceasefire. Without explicitly rejecting the content of the truce project, the Palestinian movement reaffirmed its “demands”, namely “a permanent ceasefire”, the withdrawal of the Israeli army “from the entire Gaza Strip”, “the return displaced people in their areas and places of residence, and “the intensification of the entry of humanitarian aid”.
However, Israel is opposed to a permanent ceasefire, insisting instead on a pause of several weeks in the fighting to then carry out, for example, a ground operation in Rafah, and refuses to withdraw from the entire territory. The details of this counter-proposal have not filtered out but the Israeli press mentioned earlier this week the possible release, initially, of 20 hostages considered to be “humanitarian cases”.
Information to remember:
- Hamas ‘studies’ Israeli counter-proposal for ceasefire in Gaza Strip
- New hostages could also be released
- Egyptian delegation arrives in Israel to discuss ceasefire in Gaza
- New Israeli strikes hit the Rafah region
This counter-proposal comes as an Egyptian delegation arrived in Israel on Friday to discuss a “comprehensive framework for a ceasefire” in Gaza, according to the Egyptian media close to intelligence Al-Qahera News, which cites a senior Egyptian official. According to Israeli media, the delegation must try to relaunch negotiations, which have been at a standstill for several weeks, and plead for a truce agreement involving the release of “dozens” of hostages held in Gaza.
The war between Israel and Hamas will also be at the center of meetings with senior Arab and European diplomats expected this weekend in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, including the heads of diplomacy of Germany and France.
“One missile, and another”
On the ground, during the night from Friday to Saturday, Palestinians reported Israeli strikes near Rafah, where Israel is preparing to launch a ground offensive despite the fears of the international community. Many capitals and humanitarian organizations fear a bloodbath in this city, where a million and a half Palestinians are crowded together, many in tent camps, without water or electricity.
The war in Gaza was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out against Israel by Hamas, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain captive in Gaza, including 34 who have died, according to Israeli officials. In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union. Its army launched an offensive which has so far left 34,356 dead, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.
At midday on Friday, an AFP correspondent saw aircraft firing missiles at a house in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, in the north of the territory, and the bodies of a man, a woman and a child were extracted from the rubble. “I was sitting selling cigarettes and suddenly a missile fell, shaking the whole area, followed by another missile, shaking the area again. We rushed to see what had happened, and we found martyrs, a man, a woman and a little girl,” a witness who did not give his name also told AFP.
After six and a half months of aerial bombardments, artillery fire and ground fighting, the war devastated Gaza where the UN estimates the mass of debris and rubble to be cleared at 37 million tonnes.
Lebanon, Yemen and the United States
The conflict has also migrated to the border between Israel and Lebanon, where there are daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Hezbollah, or even in Yemen, where the Houthi rebels target part of the maritime traffic in the Red Sea in support for Gaza. Israel announced Friday that an Israeli civilian working on a construction site was killed near the border by missiles fired from southern Lebanon. “In the night, terrorists fired anti-tank missiles” into a disputed area on the border between Lebanon and the Syrian Golan Heights, annexed by Israel. Hezbollah claims to have carried out “a complex ambush” against an Israeli convoy and to have “destroyed two vehicles”.
In the evening, the Lebanese Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, close to Hamas, announced the death of two of its executives in an Israeli strike in Lebanon. The Israeli army had earlier indicated that it had eliminated one of the leaders of this group, Mosab Khalaf, whom it accuses of having “prepared a large number of terrorist attacks against Israel”.
In Yemen, the Houthi rebels claimed responsibility during the night from Friday to Saturday for attacks that damaged the Andromeda star, a ship circulating in the Red Sea according to the American military Command for the Middle East (Centcom).
In the United States, a country allied to Israel, a protest movement against the war in Gaza is becoming widespread on campuses, after leaving Columbia University in New York more than a week ago.
