After Egypt, Blinken in Qatar to push for Gaza truce deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived ; Tuesday evening in Doha to push for a truce agreement in the Gaza Strip, following discussions in Egypt where talks are to resume in the coming days.

After more than ten months of war in the territory, triggered by an attack of unprecedented scale by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, the mediating countries — the United States, Qatar and Egypt — are trying to bring the two parties to an agreement on a ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas continue to accuse each other of blocking an agreement, against a backdrop of international concerns about the spread of war in the region.

On the ground, an Israeli strike on Tuesday on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City (north) killed at least 12 Palestinians, including children, according to the local Civil Defense.

The Israeli army, which said it had targeted “terrorists hiding” in the establishment, announced for its part that it had recovered in the territory the bodies of six hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack.

Photo released by the Egyptian presidency of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi (right) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in El-Alamein, Egypt, on August 20 2024 © EGYPTIAN PRESIDENCY – –

As he makes his ninth trip to the Middle East since October 7, the head of American diplomacy, whose country is Israel's first ally, is to meet in Qatar with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, as part of a tour that took him first to Israel and then to Egypt.

In El-Alamein, on the northern Egyptian coast, Mr. Blinken stressed “the importance of continuing to work” to “avoid a regional escalation.” He met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has called for a “ceasefire” in Gaza.

On Friday, Washington submitted a compromise proposal for a truce to negotiations in Doha between Israel and the mediators, and further talks are expected in Egypt this week.

Paramedics carry a body from the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, in Gaza City, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

This is “perhaps the last opportunity to bring the hostages home” and “to obtain a ceasefire,” Blinken said Monday, claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “accepted” the plan and therefore calling on Hamas to “do the same.”

– “Not constructive” statements –

Palestinian women cry after an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, in Gaza City, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

But Hamas rejected the American proposal, accusing the United States of having included “new conditions” from Israel, including the maintenance of its troops on the Gaza border with Egypt and “a right of veto” on Palestinian prisoners held by Israel who could be exchanged for hostages.

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The Palestinian movement demands the implementation of a plan announced on May 31 by the American president, Joe Biden, and which he had accepted in early July, providing for a six-week truce accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from the densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, as well as, in a second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from the besieged territory.

Mr Biden criticised Hamas for “backtracking” but the movement made “misleading allegations” and said it was “keen to reach an agreement”.

A Palestinian man looks at the rubble after an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, in Gaza City, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

A senior US official accompanying Antony Blinken on his tour on Tuesday criticised statements attributed to Mr Netanyahu on Israel's continued control of the Gaza-Egypt border, saying they were “not constructive” in the midst of negotiations.

The prime minister has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, is destroyed.

– “Slow” humanitarian convoys –

Hostages in Gaza © AFP – Paz PIZARRO, Bertille LAGORCE, Jean-Philippe CHOGNOT

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into neighboring southern Israel launched an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 105 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.

The Israeli offensive in retaliation has left at least 40,173 dead, according to the Hamas government's Health Ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed. According to the UN, most of the dead are women and minors.

On Tuesday, the army announced that it had recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages during an operation in a tunnel in Khan Younis (south), after fighting in a populated area. Five of them had been declared dead in recent months, the sixth was announced on Tuesday.

In the devastated Gaza Strip, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, Israeli bombardments have not let up.

In addition to the strike on the school, six Palestinians were killed in Rafah (south), according to medical sources. Another medical source reported four deaths in Israeli fire on the east of Khan Younis.

Seven people were also killed in an Israeli bombing in Deir al-Balah (center), the Civil Defense said.

Due to the blocking of roads caused by Israeli evacuation orders and the displacement of the population, the UN expressed concern on Tuesday about the “slowness” of humanitarian convoys which “are not reaching people in need.”

A wounded Palestinian is taken to Nasser Hospital after a bombing on Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

For the United States, a ceasefire in Gaza must also help prevent a possible attack on Israel by Iran and its allies — Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.

The latter have threatened to retaliate for the assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and that of Hezbollah military leader Fouad Shokr, killed the day before in an Israeli strike near Beirut.

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