Washington Makes New Push for Gaza Ceasefire to Head Off Famine, Rafah Assault
Editor
19 March 2024 22:53 WIB
PEACE TALKS RESUME IN QATAR
Ceasefire talks are resuming this week in Qatar after Israel rejected a Hamas counter-proposal last week. An Israeli delegation headed by the country's spy chief travelled to Qatar on Monday, although an Israeli official said Israel believed any agreement would take at least two weeks to nail down.
Both sides have been discussing a six-week truce during which around 40 Israeli hostages would be freed in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees and aid would be rushed into the Gaza Strip.
But they have yet to narrow differences over what would follow the truce, with Israel saying it will negotiate only for a temporary pause in fighting, and Hamas saying it will not release hostages without a wider plan to end the war.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation talks said the new round in Qatar was expected to be "very tough," accusing Israel of deliberately stalling.
"Israel's crimes on the ground complicate things and Netanyahu is playing the time game," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
The humanitarian suffering in Gaza, and the prospect of an assault on Rafah, have opened a clear rift between the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its closest ally Washington under President Joe Biden.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone on Monday, after which White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington wanted to discuss Israel's military plans before any assault on Rafah.
"Our position is that ... a major ground operation there would be a mistake," Sullivan told reporters. "Most importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means."
A member of Israel's security cabinet, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, said a ground assault was the only way to defeat Hamas battalions that Israel believes are holed up inside Rafah alongside more than a million displaced people.
"There is no way of destroying the terrorist and military infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza - including in Rafah - through aerial operations or messaging operations or through any other alternatives," Dichter told Kan radio.
Hamas said a senior police commander was killed in the Jabalia district of northern Gaza, along with his wife and children, in overnight air strikes, the second senior police official killed in two days after another was killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital.
Israel says it will wage war in Gaza until Hamas is annihilated, and that its strikes in recent weeks are killing senior Hamas officials. White House adviser Sullivan confirmed overnight that Israel had killed Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of the Hamas military wing in Gaza, in a strike last week. Hamas has not confirmed he was killed.
In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Shaban Abdel-Raouf, a father of five, hoped the Qatari-hosted talks between Israel and Hamas would finally yield a truce.
“We are looking forward to the good news from Qatar. Will it happen this time? Will they seal a deal? Over two million people in Gaza are praying they do,” Abdel-Raouf told Reuters via a messaging app.
REUTERS
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