Last week, in an unusual joint statement, the countries mediating a ceasefire in Gaza (the US, Egypt and Qatar) called for a meeting on Thursday for Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement without further “excuses” or “time to waste.” They offered to draft a “final proposal” that “meets the expectations of all parties.” The idea (mentioned twice in the note) that “the time has come” to gradually end the invasion, through an agreement that allows the return of the hundred hostages in Gaza, is not new: it has been included in the messages of the Joe Biden Administration for months. What is new is the context of maximum tension, in which the importance of the success of the dialogue is increasingly oriented towards avoiding reprisals from Iran and Hezbollah for the latest match that Israel has lit in the Middle East: the assassination – two weeks ago and in just 24 hours – of the number two of the Lebanese militia, Fuad Shukr, in his fiefdom in Beirut; and presumably of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniya, in Tehran, after attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
The world has been holding its breath ever since as Israel responds – jointly or separately – and how it will react, which could lead to a regional war. Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his army is prepared for a “rapid transition” from defense to offense and that the Lebanese “cannot even imagine what could happen” if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “drags Lebanon to pay an extremely high price.”
Negotiations begin on Thursday in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and will last several days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the negotiating team on Wednesday and approved its “mandate.” Hamas has announced that it will not send representatives, a decision that is more effective and symbolic than influential because they are, in any case, indirect (its leaders and those of Israel never meet in the same room).
The Islamist group justifies this by saying that the mediators should “force” Israel to “implement what was agreed” – based on the proposal that President Biden formulated at the time and to which Netanyahu introduced modifications – instead of “devoting themselves to new rounds of negotiations or new proposals” that “give more time” to Israel to “continue its genocide” in Gaza.
Ambassadors from three of Israel’s main allies – Washington, Berlin and London – appeared in Tel Aviv on Wednesday at the headquarters of the forum that is lobbying for the release of the hostages, to ask for a yes to the agreement. Just this Monday, Hamas announced that a guard killed one of the hostages he was guarding and, in another incident, two others were seriously injured. The Israeli army says it has no information to confirm or deny this.
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Never in the 10 months of the Israeli invasion has the ceasefire in Gaza been less about Gaza. Not only because of the prevailing feeling (including among Israelis of different political persuasions, according to polls) that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for personal gain, but also because of the urgency to provide Iran and Hezbollah with a symbolic victory that will allow them to reverse a revenge that both have described as “certain.”
In fact, the Lebanese militia has been saying for months that it will stop firing rockets at Israel as soon as it stops bombing Gaza, but Netanyahu treats these as separate problems, insisting on continuing to bomb the Strip until “final victory,” and many in the government and the army want to go all-out with Hezbollah now, to drive its elite forces away from the border and return the tens of thousands of displaced people from the border to their homes.
“I hope so”
The link between the end of the horror in Gaza and the deactivation of Tehran’s retaliation was made expressly by the US president on Tuesday, saying that it is his “expectation.” A day earlier, three Iranian regional government sources anonymously pointed it out to Reuters as the only thing that would deactivate the response. Amos Hochstein, Biden’s envoy who forged the maritime delimitation agreement between Israel and Lebanon in 2022, sounded more cautious this Wednesday in Beirut: “I hope so, I think so.”
“An agreement [de alto el fuego en Gaza] “It would also help facilitate a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and prevent the outbreak of a wider war,” he said after meeting Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament and an ally of Hezbollah who leads the other major Shiite movement, Amal. Another of his interlocutors, Prime Minister Nayib Mikati, admitted that diplomatic efforts are focused on “preventing a war and stopping Israeli aggression.” Hezbollah has begun moving people and computers in Dahiya, its emblematic neighborhood in Beirut where Israel assassinated Shukr. And the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was scheduled to travel to the area, but has cancelled the trip.
Among these diplomatic efforts is a joint appeal by the United States, Germany and France that did not sit well with Tehran. They asked it not to respond to the humiliation of the murder of its guest, which Israel does not recognize, as it usually does in this type of operation that bears its traces. The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran, Nasser Kanaani, said on Tuesday that it “lacks political logic” and “represents public and practical support for Israel,” by “shamelessly asking Iran not to respond to the violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity” while “raising no objections to the international crimes” of Israel. Washington has just, in fact, approved yet another arms package for its ally, this one worth more than 18 billion euros, mainly 50 F-15 fighters.
The ayatollahs’ regime, meanwhile, is using vague words to leave several doors open. Its mission to the UN insists that the retaliation for Haniya is “a matter totally unrelated” to the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza. But it also insists that it will be carried out at a “time and in a manner” that “will not be detrimental to the potential ceasefire.” And, like Hezbollah, it uses uncertainty as a weapon, causing the cancellation of numerous flights to Tel Aviv and generating anxiety among Israelis, who every week receive hoaxes or information on WhatsApp and Telegram of an imminent attack. “Waiting is part of the punishment, of the response,” Nasrallah said earlier this month.
As diplomacy moves, so does the US military machine heading to the Middle East. US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin has announced the dispatch of the guided missile submarine USS Georgia(something exceptional, because the Pentagon does not usually report the movements of its submarine fleet) and ordered the Abraham Lincolnan aircraft carrier with F-35 fighters, which will speed towards the region, from near the Philippines, to join the one already deployed Theodore Roosevelt. It will also send more fighter planes and warships.
For its part, the Israeli army has deployed elite units in the north of the country to act as a rapid intervention force, in the event that Hezbollah’s retaliation would include not only the expected launch of rockets, anti-tank projectiles and explosive-laden drones, but also the infiltration of militants, as Hamas did in its surprise attack on October 7, 2023, according to the newspaper. Maariv.
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