GAZA TRUCE UNLIKELY BEFORE RAMADAN AS TALKS STALL
▶ Hamas and Israel fail to agree on release of information concerning the 130 hostages held by the Palestinian militant group
Talks to broker a truce in Gaza before Ramadan got off to a bad start in Egypt yesterday as Hamas rejected Israel’s demand for information on the estimated 130 hostages held by the Palestinian militant group.
Israel wanted to know the number of captives, their names and their state of health but Hamas representatives told mediators that the group had denied the request, sources said.
The refusal is a serious setback to a weeks-long effort by mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar to come up with a ceasefire deal acceptable to the militant group and Israel.
With differences between Israel and Hamas over several other key issues still unresolved, according to the sources, it is unlikely a truce will be reached before the start of Ramadan, set for about March 10.
“We may realistically be looking now at the first week of Ramadan for a truce to be announced,” said one of the sources.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened not to send delegates to the talks in Cairo unless Hamas provided the information, the sources said.
However, officials from Israel’s Mossad spy agency were in Egypt yesterday, as were US mediators, the source added. A Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al Hayya, deputy leader of the group in Gaza, arrived in Egypt earlier in the day.
Concern over the condition of the hostages rose after a spokesman for the military wing of Hamas said last week that as many as 70 of them had been killed during Israeli attacks on the enclave, including seven the group had lost contact with earlier.
The Israeli request for information was relayed simultaneously to Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators at the weekend, said the sources.
Hamas has rejected previous Israeli requests to let the International Commission of the Red Cross visit the hostages and assess their condition.
The latest proposals agreed on by the mediators provide for a six-week pause during which negotiations can begin on a permanent ceasefire. They include the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for thousands of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel, a broad timetable for the reconstruction of Gaza and the delivery of substantial humanitarian supplies and fuel to the battered enclave.
The Israel-Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage. Israel responded with a devastating air and ground campaign that has killed more than 30,400 Palestinians and displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
Hamas freed about 100 hostages and Israel reciprocated with the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees during a week-long pause in fighting in late November.
The sources said Israel was reluctant to agree to the request
by Hamas that its forces leave the Gaza Strip at the end of a phased withdrawal. It was also opposed to the release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in its prisons.
Hamas continued to insist on these conditions during talks with mediators from Qatar and Egypt yesterday, the sources said.
At the top of the list of prominent jailed Palestinians are Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader seen as a potential future leader of a unified Palestinian Authority; Ahmad Saadat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and Ibrahim Hamed, a senior Hamas military commander.
Hamas also remains adamant that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to leave their homes in northern Gaza and take refuge from the fighting in the south must be allowed to return to the north, where temporary housing should be provided for them, the sources said yesterday.
Israel has reportedly said it does not want military-age men to return to northern Gaza.
Hopes for the first pause in fighting since November rose last week after talks in Doha mediated by Qatar and Egypt, and indications from US President Joe Biden that a deal was close.
Hamas fed the optimism when it softened some of its conditions.
A senior US official said on Saturday that the framework for a six-week pause in fighting was in place, with Israel’s agreement, and that it now depended on Hamas agreeing to release its hostages. “The path to a ceasefire right now, literally at this hour, is straightforward. And there’s a deal on the table. There’s a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” the official said in Washington.
“The onus right now is on Hamas.”
Mr Biden voiced hope that a ceasefire would be in place by the start of Ramadan. He and other world leaders face mounting pressure to ease the increasingly desperate plight of Palestinians, who have been enduring a humanitarian crisis throughout five months of war.
The UN says a quarter of the enclave’s population – about 576,000 people – is one step from famine.
Adding to international concern is what Gaza’s Health Ministry said was the killing of 118 people by Israeli forces as they approached a relief convoy near Gaza city on Thursday. Israel’s military said yesterday that most of the dead were killed in a stampede.
Mr Biden subsequently announced plans for the US to drop food aid into Gaza, and on Saturday carried out the first such operation in co-operation with Jordanian forces. Other nations dropping food into central and northern Gaza include Egypt, the UAE and France.
Before the US Air Force began its involvement in the Amman-led initiative, Washington had spent months urging Israel to allow more relief into Gaza, underlining its limited influence over Mr Netanyahu’s government, according to experts quoted by Reuters.
Israel denies restricting the entry of humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza.