Brokering peace for Ramadan

WEAPONS DOWN: ISRAELI-HAMAS CEASEFIRE ‘CLOSE’

Anew ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as Monday and last through Ramadan, US President Joe Biden said, in a deal that would also free dozens of hostages held in Gaza.

In the protracted bid to broker a truce, mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the US have been putting proposals to the warring parties, with negotiations ongoing.

They are seeking a six-week halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ 7 October attack on southern Israel sparked the war.

The truce deal could include the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel, media reports suggest.

“My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden said in response to a question about when a truce might start, adding: “We’re close, we’re not done yet”.

He later said an agreement “in principle” was in reach for a temporary truce to last through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts on 10 or 11 March, depending on the lunar calendar.

“There’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out,” Biden said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed any truce would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which he said was necessary to achieve “total victory” over Hamas.

There has been huge international pressure, including from the US, for Israel to hold off on sending troops into Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from the fighting.

Netanyahu’s office said on Monday the military had shown the war Cabinet its plan for evacuating civilians from Rafah, but no details have been released on where those people might go.

Rafah has been hit repeatedly by Israeli air strikes.

Displaced Gazan Sharif Muammar told AFP his son’s body was pulled from the rubble after one such strike on the city.

“There was no-one here – only children,” he said, in tears.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 89 people had been killed overnight.

The Israeli army said troops had carried out “targeted raids” in the Zeitun neighbourhood of central Gaza and other areas.

Several militants were “eliminated” inside a tunnel shaft in Zeitun, while troops also “apprehended a number of terrorists who tried to flee under the cover of the civilian population,” the army said. –