Israel has presented a new three-phase peace plan that calls for an end to hostilities in Gaza and whose first stage, a six-week truce, would take effect immediately if Hamas accepts it. This was announced this Friday by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, in a speech at the White House. In his speech, Biden called on the Palestinian fundamentalist militia to accept the proposal, transmitted to Hamas by the Qatari mediators.
The Israeli plan represents a new attempt, after several frustrated occasions, to revive the idea of stopping the war in Gaza in exchange for an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners between Hamas and Israel.
“After intensive diplomatic activities carried out by my team, in conversations with leaders of Israel, Qatar, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, Israel has offered a new comprehensive proposal for a lasting ceasefire and the release of all hostages,” Biden indicated in an appearance in the East Room of the White House, included at the last minute in his official program for this Friday.
“It is a decisive moment,” emphasized the president, who has described the initiative as a “road map.” The first phase, as he explained, would include a “complete” truce, during which some of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza would be released. Specifically, to women, the elderly and the injured. The remains of some of the hostages who have died in captivity would also be handed over. In exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be released.
The plan contemplates that Palestinian civilians can return to their homes – although many of those homes no longer exist due to the Israeli offensive – and that 600 trucks with humanitarian aid enter the Strip daily.
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During those six weeks, conditions would be negotiated to enter phase two, a permanent ceasefire during which all living hostages would be released and there would be a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. If the negotiations were prolonged, the provisional truce would continue as long as the parties continued talking.
The third phase foresees “a major reconstruction operation” in Gaza and the delivery of the remains of the hostages who had not been returned to their families until then.
Hamas has been “devastated”
According to Biden, the Israeli offer is possible because Hamas has been “devastated” after eight months of war and “is no longer capable of repeating attacks like those of October 7” last year, in which nearly 1,200 people died in Israel and that precipitated the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Precisely, this Friday the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, had announced the death of 18 members of a Hamas unit that coordinated from Gaza the execution of attacks against Israeli targets from within the West Bank. Among the members of this “Hamas cell” killed as a result of Israeli operations in the south of the Strip is Yassin Rabia, head of the unit, according to the newspaper The Times of Israel.
In announcing the new Israeli offer, the American president also acknowledged that “not everyone in Israel will support this proposal,” but urged those who criticize it to support it regardless: “I ask you to stop and think for a moment about what would happen if This opportunity is lost.”
Biden’s announcement comes as Israeli forces have confirmed that they have expanded their operation in Rafah, the last Gaza city that Israel did not yet control, and are deploying in the center of this city on the border with Egypt, in the south of the Strip. The White House assured this week that the Israeli operation does not amount to a full-fledged invasion and therefore has not crossed the limits against which it had warned the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US president had warned that an offensive in Rafah would lead him to reconsider the supply of weapons to Israel, essential for that country’s forces to maintain their operations in the Strip.
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