Photo: Bashar Taleb Agence France-Presse A Palestinian woman in the southern Gaza Strip, after Israeli tanks took up positions on a hill overlooking the area, August 18, 2024.
Agence France-Presse Gaza Strip
Published at 1:01 p.m.
- < li>Middle East
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to put pressure on Hamas rather than the Israeli side for a ceasefire in Gaza, on the eve of a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening.
Mr. Blinken, who is making his ninth visit to Israel since the start of the Gaza war on October 7, is seeking to push for a deal to end more than a decade of devastating conflict and prevent it from spreading after Iran and its allies threatened to attack Israel.
He will meet Mr. Netanyahu on Monday morning, and will also meet with his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, before traveling to Cairo on Tuesday, according to a U.S. official accompanying him.
While deep differences remain between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire, Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday called for “directing pressure on Hamas,” and “not on the Israeli government,” denouncing a “stubborn refusal” by the Palestinian Islamist movement. to conclude an agreement for a truce in Gaza.
“There are things we can be flexible on and there are things we can’t be flexible on,” added the Israeli leader, who is under increasing pressure internationally and at home to end the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
“That is why, in addition to the tremendous efforts to bring back our hostages, we remain firm on the principles […] essential to the security of Israel,” he added.
“The feeling […] is that the various sticking points that existed before can be overcome,” said a US official accompanying Mr. Blinken.
The United States, which has just approved a $20 billion arms sale to its Israeli ally, submitted a new compromise proposal on Friday after two days of talks in Doha between American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators and Israel.
Blinken to travel to Egypt on Tuesday to discuss a truce in Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Israel on Sunday, will travel to Egypt on Tuesday to try to advance negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the State Department announced.
He will meet Egyptian officials there as talks, suspended Friday evening in Doha, are due to resume during the week in Cairo, explained State Department spokesman Vedant Patel. The United States, along with Qatar and Egypt, is one of the three mediating countries between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas, which has been at war in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Agence France-Presse, in Tel Aviv
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000“Conditions of the occupier”
“The new American proposal accedes to the conditions of the [Israeli] occupier and does not lead to an agreement,” a Hamas official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Palestinian movement refuses to negotiate further and wants the plan announced at the end of May by US President Joe Biden to be implemented.
This plan provides for a six-week truce in the first phase, accompanied by of an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages abducted on October 7, and in its second phase, including a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
To say that a deal is “close,” as Joe Biden claimed on Friday, is an “illusion,” said Hamas official Sami Abu Zohri.
M. Netanyahu 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 organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, is destroyed.
For Washington, a ceasefire in Gaza would help prevent an attack by Iran and its allies against Israel, following their threats to retaliate for the assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and that of the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Chokr, killed the day before in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
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40,099 dead in Gaza according to Hamas
The Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped that As of that day, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
The Israeli offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip has left at least 40,099 dead, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.
It has caused a humanitarian disaster in the devastated Palestinian territory, threatened with famine according to the UN and “drowned” under a mountain of waste and rubble according to the Dutch peace-promoting NGO PAX.
Almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants there have been displaced.
“The tanks are getting closer”
In parallel with diplomatic efforts, the Israeli army is maintaining military pressure on Hamas in Gaza and continuing its bombings and ground offensive there.
On Sunday, the Civil Defense in Gaza reported 11 deaths in strikes in Jabalia (north) and Deir al-Balah (center).
“Are these women and children part of the resistance” ? asks Ahmed Abou Kheir, a witness to a bombing that killed a mother and her six children in their apartment in Deir al-Balah.
According to AFPTV, Palestinians have begun fleeing a makeshift camp in the Khan Younis region, on foot, by car, in pick-ups or carts, while Israeli tanks have taken up positions on a nearby hill.
“The tanks are getting closer to us, it scares us a lot, we really don't know where to go,” says Lina Saleha, a 44-year-old woman in this Al-Mawassi camp.