Israeli truce talks hit a hurdle
GAZA STRIP: Mediator Qatar said prospects for a new pause in Israel’s war with Hamas were “not really promising” as Israel rejected appeals to hold off on a threatened assault on the Gaza city of Rafah.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that foreign countries calling on Israel to spare the city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge, were effectively telling the country to “lose the war” against Hamas.
Truce efforts had intensified last week as Qatar and fellow mediators Egypt and the United States scrambled to secure a ceasefire before Israeli troops enter Rafah, the last major population centre in the Gaza Strip still untouched by Israeli ground troops.
But despite a direct appeal from US President Joe Biden earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu insisted the operation would go ahead regardless of whether further releases of Israeli hostages were agreed with Hamas. “Even if we achieve it, we will enter Rafah,” he told a news conference on Saturday.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman AlThani, who met with negotiators from both Israel and Hamas last week, said efforts for a ceasefire had been complicated by the insistence of “a lot of countries” that any new truce involve further releases of hostages.
“The pattern in the last few days is not really very promising,” he said at the Munich Security Conference.
Hamas threatened to suspend its involvement in truce talks unless relief supplies are brought into the Gaza Strip.
“Negotiations cannot be held while hunger is ravaging the Palestinian people,” a senior source in the Palestinian militant group told AFP.
Earlier, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh reiterated the group’s demands, which Mr Netanyahu dismissed as “ludicrous”.
They include a complete pause in fighting, the release of Hamas prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.