Egypt in peace bid as Israel warned not to attack Rafah
EGYPT sent a high-level delegation to Israel yesterday with the hope of brokering a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza.
At the same time, officials warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on Gaza’s city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability.
Egypt’s top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation and plans to discuss a “new vision” with Israel for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, an Egyptian official said.
As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been increasing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a ceasefire.
Yesterday’s talks were focusing first on a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions,” the Egyptian official said.
The hope is negotiations will then continue, with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, he said.
The official said mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands.
Hamas has said it will not back down from its demands for a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has rejected.
Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.
Ahead of the talks, senior Hamas official Basem Naim was asked about the negotiations and replied: “There is nothing new from our side.”
Meanwhile, a top Hamas political official told a news agency that the Islamic terrorist group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel.
The Israel-hamas war was sparked by the October 7 raid into southern Israel in which terrorists killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages.
Israel says Hamas is still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
The war has killed more than 34,000
Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women.
Meanwhile, Israel has been conducting near-daily raids on Rafah, a city in which more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge.
The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles in an area of southern Israel that is close to Rafah, in apparent preparations for an invasion of the city.
Rafah also abuts the Gaza-egypt border.
While in Israel, Mr Kamel, who heads Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, plans to make clear Egypt “will not tolerate” Israel’s deployments of troops along that border, the Egyptian official said. The official said Egypt shared intelligence with the US and European countries showing that a Rafah offensive will inflame the entire region.
A Western diplomat in Cairo also said Egypt has intensified its efforts in recent days to reach a compromise and establish a short ceasefire in Gaza that will help negotiate a longer truce and avert a Rafah offensive.
Egypt has also said an attack on Rafah would violate the decades-old peace deal between Egypt and Israel.
In another development, Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed area along the border, killing an Israeli civilian.
Hezbollah said its fighters ambushed the convoy shortly before midnight on Thursday, destroying two vehicles.
The Israeli military said the ambush wounded an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work, and that he later died of his wounds.
Low-intensity fighting along the Israel-lebanon border has repeatedly threatened to boil over as Israel has targeted senior Hezbollah militants in recent months. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.
The Gaza conflict continues to spark anger outside the region.
Students at a university in Paris resumed pro-palestinian protests yesterday, inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses around the US, two days after French police broke up another demonstration.
Dozens of students at the Sciences Po blocked an entrance to a campus building in central Paris with bins, a bicycle, pieces of metal and wooden platforms.
About 40 people remained in a building overnight.
In America, students were digging in at Columbia University for a 10th day, one of a number of demonstrations affecting campuses from California to Connecticut.
Hundreds of students and even some professors have been arrested across the US, sometimes amid struggles with police.
In New York, Columbia University was negotiating with student protesters who have rebuffed police and doubled down.
After a tent encampment popped up at Indiana University Bloomington, police with shields and batons shoved into protesters and arrested 33.
Hours later, at the University of Connecticut, police tore down tents and arrested one person.
There is nothing new from our side