EGYPT HOSTS ‘DECISIVE’ TALKS TO END WAR IN GAZA
▶ Sources say Qatar will pick up baton after two days of indirect communications between Hamas and Israel
Israel and Hamas are in “decisive” indirect negotiations in Cairo on proposals to stop the war in Gaza that appear to align with the demands of the Palestinian group, sources told The National yesterday.
The Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al Hayya, deputy of the group’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, and the Israeli delegation led by senior officials from spy agency Mossad and its domestic security counterpart the Shin Bet, are meeting Egyptian and US officials to discuss the proposals.
According to the sources, the talks in Egypt will last two days before moving to Qatar.
The Doha talks will be followed by consultations among Hamas leaders both in exile and in the Gaza Strip to formulate a response.
The latest proposals envisage a three-week truce during which Hamas would be expected to release about 20 women, elderly people and children in exchange for a number of Palestinian detainees.
This truce would be followed by a 10-week ceasefire, during which there would be a larger detainee and hostage swap.
The proposals, according to the sources, now include a “period of sustained calm”.
This period, which could last as long as a year, is said to be Israel’s compromise response to a Hamas demand for a permanent ceasefire.
Israel has rejected any ceasefire before the release of all hostages and refused freeing high-profile Palestinian detainees including Marwan Barghouti, a member of the Fatah faction and possible candidate for high office.
“Everything is back on the table now. These are decisive talks,” a Palestinian political source said. The latest round of negotiations comes as the US and other western nations increase pressure on Israel to conclude a deal to stop a war which, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, has killed about 34,500 Palestinians and caused a wave of pro-Palestinian protests across universities in the US and Europe.
Hours before the delegations arrived in Cairo, US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to review the “ongoing talks to secure the release of hostages together with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza”, the White House said.
The Palestinian political source said the initial Israeli response to the proposals received by Cairo included ambiguous phrases such as “ready” or “striving to”, which, according to the source, “confirms the absence of a clear commitment and no decisive guarantees”.
Another source in Cairo also made reference to “the ambiguous phrasing” but added that regardless of Hamas’s response, the latest proposals provide the basis for another
Sources say year-long ‘period of sustained calm’ is now in mix with plan for three-week truce and 10-week ceasefire
round of negotiations over the details. Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza followed a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, when the group’s fighters killed about 1,200 people and abducted 240.
A truce in late November led to the release of 100 hostages. About 30 of those who remained are now believed to have died in captivity.
Israel has declared the annihilation of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, its main war aim, along with freeing the hostages.
It wants a commanding security role in postwar Gaza and measures to stop a repeat of the October attack, the deadliest since its foundation in 1948.
Walid Al Kilani, Hamas spokesman in Lebanon, yesterday told The National the group was “sticking to the proposals it presented to the mediators, which include four tracks: a ceasefire, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, allowing the displaced to return to their areas and the release of prisoners and detainees”.
Hamas, he added, “wants to follow the four tracks, while Israel wants to work on one track, which is the release of the prisoners and hostages only”.
The group has also been demanding a timetable for the reconstruction of Gaza.