Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa Agence France-Presse Palestinian women observe a school destroyed by an Israeli army strike in Gaza.
Shaun Tandon – Agence France-Presse in El Alamein
Published at 9:53 a.m.
- Middle East
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks in Egypt on Tuesday before heading to Qatar to push for a truce deal in Gaza, as Hamas accused the United States of giving Israel a “green light” to continue the war.
In the 11th month of the 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 the bodies of six hostages taken in the Gaza Strip.
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 deaths of at least 12 Palestinians, including children, in a new Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City. The military said it targeted “terrorists hiding in the school.”
On his ninth trip to the Middle East since October 7, Mr. Blinken met in El-Alamein, Egypt, with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who called for a “ceasefire in Gaza.”
The secretary of state, whose country is Israel’s top ally and main military supporter, was then due to travel to Doha.
This is “perhaps the last opportunity to bring the hostages home” and “to secure a ceasefire,” Mr. Blinken said in Israel on Monday.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “accepted the compromise plan” from Washington for a truce, and called on Hamas to “do the same.”
“American green light”
US President Joe Biden then accused the Palestinian movement of “playing a machine 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 keen to reach a ceasefire agreement,” and constitute a “new green light” for Israel to continue the war.
On Friday, Washington submitted a compromise proposal for a truce, during new negotiations in Doha between Israel and the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Hamas immediately rejected it, 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 the 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 he accepted at the beginning of July.
The plan calls 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 for a second phase, including a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
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Six hostage bodies recovered
Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which took 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, including 34 declared dead by the army.
The 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.
On Tuesday, the army announced that it had recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages during an operation carried out with domestic intelligence in Khan Younes. They are Alex Dancyg, Chaim Peri, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, all announced dead in recent months, and Avraham Munder whose death was announced on Tuesday.
The Netanyahu government “must do everything in its power to get the deal on the table,” the Hostage Families Forum said.
“Sense of urgency”
In the devastated Gaza Strip, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, the deadly Israeli bombings are not respite.
In addition to the strike on the school, six Palestinians were killed in Rafah, including four on board 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 Yemen’s 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 for that of Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shokr, killed the day before in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
According to Mr. Blinken, there is “a sense of urgency across the region” in the face of the risk of a conflagration.