Mediators seek Gaza truce as US urges ‘immediate cease-fire’
— Mediators in Cairo pushed on Monday with efforts towards a Gaza truce after Israel’s top ally the United States stepped up pressure for a halt in fighting and more aid to enter the besieged Palestinian territory.
Bombardment and combat claimed 124 more lives within 24 hours, said the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory which has been devastated and gripped by dire food shortages in the war sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators met with U.S. and Hamas envoys — but no Israeli delegates so far — in Cairo for a second day of talks aiming for a halt in fighting before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan starts on March 10 or 11.
An Egyptian TV channel linked to the intelligence service reported “significant progress” towards a truce deal without giving any more details, while a Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the talks were continuing.
The plan on the table aims for a six-week truce, the exchange of scores of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and for more aid to enter Gaza — but sticking points remain.
Hamas wants Israel to withdraw all forces, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will finish its campaign to destroy Hamas, including in far-southern Rafah where about 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Israel has also demanded a list of all remaining captives. Israel has said it believes 130 of the original 250 captives taken by Hamas remain in Gaza, but that 31 have been killed.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris called on Sunday for the sixweek truce deal to be accepted, while criticizing Israel in unusually strong language over insufficient aid deliveries into Gaza.
“Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table,” she said in a speech in Selma, Alabama.
“Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire,” she said. “Well, there is a deal on the table. And, as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal.”
The vice president also stressed that Gazans are starving and that conditions are “inhumane” and demanded the Netanyahu government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses.”
Her comments come as President Joe Biden faces acute pressure in an election year over his steadfast support for Israel and Gaza’s soaring civilian death toll, which the health ministry there put at 30,534, mostly women and children.
Harris as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, were later set to meet Israel’s former military chief Benny Gantz in Washington.