“Progress” in Gaza truce negotiations, according to Washington

Washington reported “progress” on Friday in ongoing talks in Cairo toward a truce in the Gaza Strip coupled with the release of hostages, at a time when the war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of abating.

The heads of Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence), David Barnea, and Shin Bet (internal security), Ronen Bar, are taking part in the negotiations, a week after a previous round of talks in Doha with American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

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

According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are in Cairo “to advance an agreement to (free) the hostages” kidnapped and taken to Gaza during an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil, which triggered war in the devastated and besieged Palestinian territory.

CIA Director William Burns and White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk are also present, while Hamas, which did not take part in the Doha round of negotiations, is not participating.

According to an Egyptian source close to the negotiations, the heads of Egyptian and Qatari intelligence are also present.

According to this source, an “expanded” round of talks will begin on Sunday. She presents it as “a pivotal step for the formulation of an agreement”, without giving further details.

Smoke clouds after a bombing raid over a village in southern Lebanon, August 23, 2024 © AFP – Rabih DAHER

The White House denied Friday that talks in Cairo were close to failure, as Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement accuse each other of blocking an agreement, saying instead that “progress (had) been made.”

“We now need both sides to come together and work toward an implementation” of an agreement, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, saying that last night's discussions “were constructive in nature” and hoping to see this momentum “continue” over the “next two days.”

– “Heavy foreboding and difficult” –

The Philadelphia Corridor © AFP – Omar KAMAL

In Doha, Washington had submitted a new proposal for a truce agreement, the content of which has not been made public.

Israel has not yet announced its approval and Hamas has rejected it, accusing the United States of having included “Israeli conditions” in it, particularly on the “Philadelphia corridor”.

M. Netanyahu says he is determined to keep Israeli troops in the strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border, which they took control of in May, “in order to prevent Hamas from rearming,” according to his office.

Hamas will accept “nothing less than the withdrawal of the occupation forces (from Gaza), including Philadelphia,” Hamas official Hossam Badran told AFP on Friday, seeing in Mr. Netanyahu's insistence on wanting to control this sector Israel's desire “to continue its war” and “its refusal to reach a final agreement.”

The Islamist movement insists on the implementation, as is, of a plan announced on May 31 by Joe Biden, which it had accepted. This provided for a six-week truce accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, then, in a second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from the territory.

“I hope that these negotiations (…) will lead to solutions” and “that the war will stop,” Oumm Mouhammad Wadi, a Gazan “tired” of the situation, told AFP.

For the United States, a ceasefire in Gaza would also help avoid a military escalation in the Middle East, where Iran and its allies — Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah — accuse Israel of having assassinated the former leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran at the end of July, and are threatening to to retaliate.

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by the Israeli air defense system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel on August 23, 2024 © AFP – Jalaa MAREY

Israel is also under pressure on its northern border, where it has been exchanging fire daily for more than ten months with Hezbollah, which has opened a front against it in support of the Hamas.

On Friday, eight people, including a child and five Hezbollah fighters, were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the Islamist movement.

– Bombings and fighting –

Palestinians flee after a bombing on a building in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on August 22, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

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

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

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and which he considers terrorist, as do the United States and the European Union.

In response to the attack, its army launched a major offensive in the Palestinian territory that left at least 40,265 dead, according to the Hamas government's health ministry, which did not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed. According to the UN, most of the dead are women and minors.

This photo released by the Israeli army on August 23, 2024 shows Israeli forces during an operation to dismantle a tunnel in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip © Israeli Army – –

In the Gaza Strip, where the some 2.4 million inhabitants are facing a humanitarian disaster, witnesses and AFP journalists reported on Friday Israeli artillery fire and ground clashes in the center and south of the territory.

Four people were killed by artillery fire on Beit Lahia (north), according to the Civil Defense.

The Israeli army indicated that during the past day, Israeli troops had “eliminated dozens of terrorists and dismantled dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites” in several sectors.

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