officials talk about the U.S.-Israel proposal with small changes
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up after the latest round of Hamas cease-fire talks and the CIA Director Ismail Haniyeh
The latest round of cease-fire talks ended after “in-depth and serious discussions” according to the Hamas militant group. After earlier signs of progress, the outlook appeared to dim as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to resist international pressure to halt the war.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed when rockets were launched at a border crossing between Gaza and Israel. Israel stepped up its attacks in Gaza.
After the most recent round of negotiations between Israel and Hamas appeared to remain stuck on certain issues, Israel decided to go ahead and make a move. The director of the CIA took part in the Cairo talks over the weekend.
As Israel ordered the local offices of Al Jazeera to close, it came as a threat to talks. The ban did not appear to affect the channel’s operations in Gaza or the West Bank.
Meanwhile, senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement Sunday it was approaching the deal with “positive and flexible positions ” but that its priority is “to stop the aggression against our people.”
What Israel can do about Gaza, including famine, and the emergence of peace in the Middle East: a U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees
The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, called for an independent investigation and “accountability for the blatant disregard of humanitarian workers.” He also said Israel this week denied him entry to Gaza for a second time.
In expanded remarks as the full NBC interview was released, WFP chief Cindy McCain said famine was “moving its way south” in Gaza and that Israel’s efforts to allow in more aid were not enough. Over one million people are on the outside border and we have about enough trucks and food to last them for three months. She said that they needed to get that in.
That would be the first of three phases of reciprocal actions from each side. In the second phase, both sides would work towards a sustainable calm, which would involve the release of more hostages. Both officials acknowledged that the warring parties would likely clash over the definition of “sustainable calm.”
Hamas, Israel, and the Gaza War: What will the Palestinians and Israelis say in a Brief Review of the Israel-Gaza Agreement?
Hours later, Hamas launched rockets from Rafah into Israel, killing four Israeli troops. Israel launched air strikes on Rafah, killing a number of civilians. Air strikes Sunday night into Monday killed at least 26 people in eight homes in Rafah, among them 11 children and eight women, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which said there are still bodies under the rubble not in the death count. Humanitarian aid had been entering from southern Gaza when the border was closed by Israel.
Netanyahu said no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself in his fiery address for the annual Holocaust memorial day.
Since late March, Israeli air strikes have hit Rafah almost daily, killing nearly 300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to hospital records and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
A move by the Israeli military to order tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Rafah to leave on Monday indicates an impending Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The timing appeared noteworthy. Israel ordered some people to leave some areas in the city of Rafah, a sign that they are close to launching a long-awaited invasion. Late in the day, the Israeli military said it was carrying out “targeted strikes” on in eastern Rafah.
He said that they won’t accept a situation where the Hamas battalions return to Gaza, rebuild their military infrastructure and threaten Israel, even if it means Israeli troop withdrawal.
“What is the meaning of the agreement if a ceasefire is not its first outcome,” he said, indicating the talks continued to be stuck on key points regarding Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and whether a ceasefire and release of hostages would lead to a permanent ceasefire or a temporary truce.
Israeli Operation in Rafah and the Start of Israel’s War in the Balkans: Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Middle East
Israel wants to dismantle the Hamas battalions there. Netanyahu last week said he would enter southern Gaza with or without a deal with Hamas.
Egypt has opposed an Egyptian assault on the city fearing the displacement of Palestinians into its territory.
Briefing journalists on Monday, Israeli military spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, said Israel’s operation in Rafah would be of “limited scope”. Shoshani would not say if this meant a broader incursion had begun or if it would continue at a later stage.
Israel’s assault on Khan Younis has mostly destroyed the area. Unexploded bombs are also found in the area. The region of al- mawasi borders the sea and lacks basic humanitarian services like access to health care, water and fuel.
In the past weeks the U.S. and the UN tried to stop Israel from entering. Overnight, Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, told U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in a phone call that “there was no choice left and this meant the start of the Israeli operation in Rafah.”
The proposal for a hostage-prisoner exchange and cease-fire that Hamas said on Monday that it could accept has minor wording changes from the one that Israel and the United States had presented to the group recently, according to two officials familiar with the revised proposal.
The officials said that the changes were made by Arab mediators in consultation with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and that the new version keeps a key phrase, the eventual enactment of a “sustainable calm,” wording that all sides had said earlier they could accept.
There was a official in the Middle East who said that Hamas viewed the term as an end to the war as Israel stopped its actions and withdrew troops from Gaza. The officials said that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was expected to push back against that definition.
Verifying the Violation of the Oslo-Hamas Peace Planned for the First Round of the Second Israeli-Israeli Warsaw Agreement
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The strikes may prove to be an attempt to turn up the pressure on Hamas negotiators. The office of the prime minister said that the new cease-fire proposal from Hamas was not satisfactory.
With talks underway, a senior Hamas official said in a text message that the group’s representatives had arrived in Cairo for the talks, “with great positivity” toward the latest proposal.
Israeli officials, who offered a hint of hope, said that they had reduced the number of hostages to be freed during the first phase of the truce.
