The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has not yet responded on Thursday to the Israeli proposal for a truce in Loopfueling growing doubts that a ceasefire will be reached after almost seven months of war.
Israel and the mediating countries, Qatar, Egypt and the United States, are awaiting a response from Hamas to a plan for a 40-day truce.
The proposal seeks a cessation of fighting that also allows the release of hostages held captive in Gaza since the attack by Islamist commandos on October 7 in Israeli territory, in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
This agreement would be the first since the week-long truce in November that allowed 80 Israeli hostages to be exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkentook advantage of his visit to Israel on Wednesday to push for an agreement.
Blinken urged Hamas to accept the proposal, which he described as “extraordinarily generous” on Israel’s part, and reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the opposition of USA to an Israeli invasion in Rafah, a town in southern Gaza where 1.5 million Palestinians survive in extreme conditions.
The war in Gaza shakes up international relations and on Wednesday the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced that he will break relations with Israel and in the United States the protests in several universities due to the conflict have ended in violent evictions after the intervention of the riot police .
The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, stated this Thursday that American universities are “contaminated by hatred and anti-Semitism.”
“Negative”
Israel continues its offensive in Loop launched in response to the unprecedented attack by Hamas on its territory, which left 1,170 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli statistics.
The Islamist commandos kidnapped about 250 people that day. Israel estimates that 129 are still held in Gaza and that 34 have died in captivity.
Netanyahu’s government faces pressure from the families of the hostages who this Thursday protested with photographs of the women held captive in Gaza outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem.
The air and ground offensive launched by Israel in retaliation against Hamas has so far left 34,596 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Ministry of Health of this Palestinian territory governed by Hamas.
At least 28 people have died in Gaza in the last 24 hours, according to Hamas, after several bombings that hit the north, center and south of this territory that is in ruins.
Hamas maintains that a permanent ceasefire is a precondition for any agreement, a position that Israel rejects.
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas leader, told AFP on Wednesday that the group’s position is “negative” but that negotiations are continuing.
“The situation is sensitive,” said Zaher Jabareen, a member of the Hamas negotiating team.
“A credible plan” for civilians
Hours before Blinken arrived IsraelNetanyahu reaffirmed his intention to invade Rafah, considering that this town constitutes the last stronghold of Hamas, with or without a truce agreement.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed the need for Israel to have “a credible plan to evacuate civilians” from Rafah, during a telephone interview with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.
The war left this narrow territory in ruins, where today there is more debris to remove than in Ukraine, which has faced a Russian invasion for more than two years, said the director of the UN demining program for the Palestinian Territories.
Mohamed Al Mughayyir, an official in charge of the Civil Defense of Loopwarned Thursday of the danger posed by unexploded ordnance.
“Every week there are more than ten explosions when handled by children and civilians, causing deaths and serious injuries,” he told AFP.
In Rafah, Yusef Harazi, a mechanic, said he hopes there will be a cessation of fighting.
“We don’t have a break, neither physical nor mental,” he said.
A critical issue for civilians in Gaza is the arrival of more humanitarian aid to this territory where there are 2.4 million inhabitants who since the beginning of the conflict have been faced with shortages due to the siege established by Israel.
Deliveries are strictly controlled by Israeli authorities and come in slowly, and the United States, Israel’s main ally, is pressing to increase the flow of aid to alleviate the risk of famine.
Source: Gestion
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