Gaza ceasefire hopes in jeopardy over the fate of Israeli hostages
HOPES of a ceasefire in Gaza were in the balance last night after Hamas’s refusal to offer assurances on hostages led to Israel’s apparent boycott of crunch talks in Cairo.
Officials for the terror group arrived in egypt yesterday saying a six-week cessation in fighting could be agreed ‘within the next 24 to 48 hours’.
a US official also claimed there was a ‘framework deal’ which Israel had ‘more or less accepted’ and a ceasefire was likely to be in place in time for the start of ramadan, a week away.
But Hamas’s refusal to confirm which of the 100-plus Israeli hostages were still alive remained the sticking point and, as of late yesterday, there was no sign Israel would attend.
an agreement would bring the first extended truce of the war, which has raged for five months so far with just a week-long pause in November. Dozens of hostages held by the militants would be freed in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
The US began airdropping aid into Gaza at the weekend, where a crisis is deepening as deliveries of relief supplies dwindle. a spokesman for the Gazan health ministry claimed at least 16 children had died of malnutrition in recent days as ‘famine spreads in the Strip’s north’.
Pressure for a deal to be struck grew after Thursday’s incident outside Gaza City in the north where at least 112 people were killed as crowds rushed an aid convoy. Hamas accused Israel of shooting at civilians.
yesterday a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said ‘no strike’ was carried out but claimed ‘ several looters approached our forces and posed an immediate threat to them’. Gaza authorities also said another eight people were killed yesterday when a truck carrying aid from a Kuwaiti charity was hit by an air strike. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Under the deal, aid would be ramped up and fighting would cease in time to head off a huge Israeli assault on rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is penned in against the southern border fence abutting egypt. IDF forces would pull back from some areas to let Gazans return to empty homes.
a Hamas official said the group would demand ‘ the entry of at least 400 to 500 trucks per day’ carrying food, medicine and fuel as part of the truce. But the plan appears to stop short of fulfilling the main Hamas demand for a permanent end to the war, while also leaving unresolved the fate of more than half of the 100 remaining hostages – including Israeli men not covered by terms to free women, children, the elderly and wounded.
a ceasefire could start ‘today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages... the sick, the wounded, elderly and women’, the US official said. ‘right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas.’ But Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, told Qatar TV the group insisted on a complete, not ‘temporary’, ceasefire and on ‘ending aggression against our people’.
‘The ball is in Hamas’s court’