Blinken in Egypt and Qatar to push for Gaza truce deal

Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks in Egypt on Tuesday before heading to Qatar to push for a Gaza truce deal, as Hamas accused the United States of giving Israel a “green light” to continue the war.

In the 11th month of this conflict, sparked by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israel on October 7, the Israeli army announced that it had recovered in the Gaza Strip the bodies of six hostages taken during that attack.

Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of blocking a ceasefire deal in the besieged Palestinian territory, where an Israeli retaliatory offensive has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian and health disaster.

On Tuesday, the local Civil Defense announced the death of at least 12 Palestinians, including children, in a new Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City (north). The army said it had targeted “terrorists hiding in the school.”

For his ninth trip to the Middle East since October 7, Mr. Blinken met in El-Alamein in Egypt with President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who called for a “ceasefire in Gaza.”

The Secretary of State, whose country is Israel's first ally and main military supporter, was then due to travel to Doha.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in El-Alamein, Egypt, on August 20, 2024 © POOL – Kevin MOHATT

This is “perhaps the last opportunity to bring the hostages home” and “to obtain a ceasefire,” Blinken said in Israel on Monday.

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “accepted Washington's compromise plan” for a truce, and called on Hamas to “do the same.”

– “American green light” –

US President Joe Biden then accused the Palestinian movement of ” to go back”.

But Hamas immediately rejected in a statement the “misleading allegations of Biden and Blinken”. “They do not reflect the true position of Hamas which is anxious to reach a ceasefire agreement”, and constitute a “new green light” to Israel to continue the war.

Palestinians inspect the rubble after an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, in Gaza City, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

On Friday, Washington submitted a compromise proposal for a truce, during new negotiations in Doha between Israel and the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Hamas immediately rejected it, accusing the United States of having included “new conditions” from Israel, including maintaining its troops on the Gaza border with Egypt and “a right of veto” on Palestinian prisoners likely to be exchanged for hostages.

The Palestinian movement refuses to negotiate further and demands a timetable for implementing the plan announced on May 31 by Joe Biden, which it accepted in early July.

The plan provides for a six-week truce in the first phase, accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, and in its second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

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– Six hostage bodies recovered –

Protesters carry placards and chant slogans during a rally calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack, in Tel Aviv on August 19, 2024 © AFP – Jack GUEZ

Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

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

Of the 251 people abducted that day, 105 are still being held in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.

Israeli aerial bombardments and retaliatory ground offensive have so far left at least 40,173 dead and nearly 93,000 injured, according to the Hamas government's Health Ministry. The latter does not detail the number of civilians and combatants killed, but according to the UN most of the dead are women and minors.

A combo created on August 20, 2024 shows portraits of Israeli hostages who died in the Gaza Strip, provided by the Hostages Families Forum in Israel © the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters – –

On Tuesday, the army announced that it had recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages, during an operation carried out with internal intelligence in Khan Younis (south). They are Alex Dancyg, Chaim Peri, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, all reported dead in recent months, and Avraham Munder whose death was announced on Tuesday.

The Netanyahu government “must do everything in its power to finalize the agreement on the table,” the Hostage Families Forum said.

– “Sense of urgency” –

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

In the devastated Gaza Strip, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, the deadly Israeli bombardments show no sign of abating.

In addition to the strike on the school, six Palestinians were killed in Rafah (south), including four in a car targeted by the Israeli army, according to medical sources.

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.

Children walk past garbage and sewage at a Palestinian displaced persons camp in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on August 19, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

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

According to Mr. Blinken, there is “a sense of urgency throughout the region” in the face of the risk of a conflagration.

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