Israel and Hamas are trying to reactivate negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza with the help of the three main intermediary countries: the United States, Qatar and Egypt. There has already been a first contact in the latter country this Thursday. It is the first time that these talks have taken place since six hostages were murdered in the Strip two months ago. The objective of this possible truce, in addition to stopping the attacks, is to try to free the 101 kidnapped people who still remain in Gaza and alleviate the humanitarian crisis that is shaking hundreds of thousands of Gazans due to the blockade imposed by the Israeli State. Contacts have been resumed amid moderate optimism following the death in combat of the leader of the Palestinian fundamentalist group, Yahia Sinwar, who remains unreplaced. Meanwhile, the war continues with great intensity in both Lebanon and Gaza.
The first meetings are already taking place in Cairo (Egypt) and are scheduled to continue on Sunday in Doha, the Qatari capital. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, officially announced on Thursday that he is going to send a delegation to that meeting, a step that has been received with some hope by the forum that hosts the families of the hostages, very critical of the management of the crisis carried out by the president.
Netanyahu reported this movement while the head of Mossad, the secret services abroad, David Barnea, was already in the Egyptian capital, where he met this Thursday with the new head of that country’s secret services, Hasan Rashad, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Both have discussed Egypt’s role in the negotiations for an agreement to release the hostages and the possibility of promoting a new proposal at the Doha summit,” the media adds. Rashad also held a meeting on Thursday with a delegation from the Palestinian militia Hamas led by one of its top political leaders, Jalil Haya, as reported by Reuters citing Egyptian media and the Palestinian armed group.
More than 11 months have passed since a week-long truce was agreed at the end of November 2023 that stopped weapons in Gaza and allowed the exchange of more than a hundred captive hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Since then, dozens of attempts inside and outside the Middle East have failed and the death toll in the Palestinian enclave is now close to 43,000.
In these two months of blocked negotiations, Israel has beheaded Hezbollah and Hamas, killing their leaders, Hasan Nasrallah and Sinwar, respectively. Despite remaining inside the Strip and being the man most wanted by Israel, Sinwar, leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, managed to assert his judgment in contacts outside. In the military field, in recent weeks, the Israeli State has undertaken a ground invasion in southern Lebanon and, in turn, an offensive focused especially on northern Gaza.
This keeps the war on both fronts at high levels of violence, with dozens of fatalities every day. In the last few hours, Israel has announced the death of 10 of its soldiers in southern Lebanon, while hundreds of Gazans continue to die in Israeli bombings on Gaza. The last one, this Friday, with at least 28 dead on Khan Yunis, in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
At least three journalists from the Al Mayadeen networks, close to Iran, and Al Manar, in the orbit of Hezbollah, have lost their lives overnight in an Israeli attack on a hostel in Hasbaya, in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Government has described it as a “war crime.” With these three, there are now 131 reporters and media employees who have died since the current contest began on October 7 of last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, according to its acronym in English).
Negotiating round in Doha
The Israeli delegation in Doha, according to Netanyahu, will be headed by the head of Mossad. His displacement has the approval of the security cabinet, where the main decisions regarding the conflict are made, according to the prime minister’s office on Thursday. On Hamas’s side, Khalil Haya will take the reins. The head of the CIA (the US secret services), William Burns, and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al Thani, will also participate. The head of the Egyptian secret services, Hasan Rashad, is not scheduled to travel to Doha, according to Haaretz.
The truce talks are going to be reactivated, if nothing prevents it at the last minute, after the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has visited the region these days, including Israel and Qatar, in an attempt to boost negotiations. conversations in the open situation after Sinwar’s death.
“We demand that the Israeli Prime Minister grant the negotiating team full authority to secure this agreement,” the forum of the families of the kidnapped claimed in a statement that mentions by name the last six captives who left the Strip. They were murdered in a tunnel almost two months ago when, according to the official Israeli version, troops were near where Hamas men were holding them. “We must take advantage of the latest military achievements” so that the hostages return thanks to an “immediate agreement,” the text adds, referring to the elimination of Sinwar.
That death has triggered optimism among Israelis and Americans regarding a possible truce, but Netanyahu’s decision has been to maintain the attacks and bombings on Gaza with enormous intensity. Hamas maintains that the hostages will not be released as long as “the aggression” of the Israeli occupation troops continues.
Several members of the Government led by Netanyahu participated on Thursday night in an event in the town of Sderot, less than two kilometers from the Strip, where the occupation of that territory and the expulsion of its inhabitants were openly demanded. Among them was the ultranationalist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who was opposed to negotiating with Hamas the release of the hostages. During the night, the military and police presence did not prevent dozens of protesters from reaching the separation fence between Gaza and Israel in an attempt to access the Palestinian enclave.
