CEASEFIRE EFFORTS BACK AT SQUARE ONE: HAMAS
Group blames Israel for effectively rejecting truce deal proposed by mediators, while US says it is watching operations in Rafah ‘with concern’
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said efforts to find a Gaza Strip truce deal were back at square one after Israel effectively spurned a plan from international mediators, and the White House said it was trying to keep the sides engaged “if only virtually”.
Hamas said it would consult other Palestinian factions on its strategy for talks to halt seven months of war triggered by its deadly October 7 attack on Israel.
The United Nations warned that aid for Gaza could grind to a halt in days after Israel seized control last week of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a vital route for supplies to the devastated Palestinian enclave.
Despite heavy US pressure, Israel has said it will proceed with an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced people have sought refuge and Israeli forces say Hamas militants are dug in.
Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing the eastern and western sections of Rafah on Friday, effectively encircling the eastern part of the city in an assault that has caused Washington to hold up delivery of some military aid to its ally.
The White House said it was closely watching the Israeli operations “with concern”, but they appeared to be localised around the closed Rafah crossing and did not reflect a large-scale invasion.
“Once again, we urge the Israelis to open up that crossing to humanitarian assistance immediately,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Israel’s plan for an all-out assault on Rafah has ignited one of the biggest rifts in generations with its main ally. Washington held up a weapons shipment over fears of huge civilian casualties.
Ceasefire talks in Cairo broke up on Thursday with no agreement. Hamas had said it agreed at the start of the week to a proposal submitted by Qatari and Egyptian mediators that had previously been accepted by Israel.
Israel said the Hamas proposal contained elements it could not accept.
“Israel’s rejection of the mediators’ proposal through the amendments it made returned things to the first square,” Hamas said on Friday.
“In the light of Netanyahu’s behaviour and rejection of the mediators’ document and the attack on Rafah and the occupation of the crossing, the leadership of the movement will hold consultations with the brotherly leaders of the Palestinian factions to review our negotiation strategy.”
“Hamas did not suspend nor withdraw from the negotiations; the occupation [Israelis] turned against the mediators’ proposal,” a senior Hamas official, Khalil Al-Hayya, said in comments to Al Araby TV published by Hamas.
Kirby said the end of the talks – which CIA director William Burns was helping mediate – was “deeply regrettable”, but the US believed the differences were surmountable. “We are working hard to keep both sides engaged in continuing the discussion, if only virtually,” he said.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates hit out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday after the Israeli leader said the Gulf state could be involved in aiding a future government in Gaza after the war.
“The UAE stresses that the Israeli prime minister does not have any legal capacity to take this step, and the UAE refuses to be drawn into any plan aimed at providing cover for the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said in an Arabic post on X.
Residents described almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of Rafah on Friday, with intense fighting between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Hamas said it ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the east of the city, a sign the Israelis had penetrated several kilometres from the east to the outskirts of the built-up area.
Israel has ordered civilians out of the eastern part of Rafah, forcing tens of thousands of people to seek shelter outside the city, previously the last refuge of more than a million who fled other parts of the enclave during the war.
Israel says it cannot win the war without assaulting Rafah to root out thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are sheltering there. Hamas says it will fight to defend it. Supplies were already running short and aid operations could halt within days as fuel and food stocks get used up, UN aid agencies said.
“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said the Unicef Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.
Aid agencies say the battle has threatened hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians.
“It is not safe, all of Rafah isn’t safe, as tank shells landed everywhere since yesterday,” Abu Hassan, 50, a resident of Tel al-Sultan west of Rafah said via a chat app.
The Israeli military said its forces in eastern Rafah had located several tunnel shafts, and troops fought at close quarters with groups of Hamas fighters, killing several.