CAIRO/RAFAH: On Wednesday, following the US announcement that truce negotiations in Cairo were “in the hands of” the Palestinian group, Hamas remained true to its demands for a ceasefire agreement and hostage exchange with Israel.
In Cairo, negotiators from Hamas, Qatar, and Egypt—but not from Israel—are attempting to broker a 40-day cease-fire in the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza in time for Ramadan, which starts early next week.
President Joe Biden stated on Tuesday that “a rational offer” for a truce had been made in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages, and he urged Hamas to accept the parameters on the table. Israel is a US ally.
“Right now, it’s in Hamas’s hands,” Biden said reporters. “If we get to the circumstance that it [fighting] continues to Ramazan … it’s gonna be very dangerous.”
Although Hamas leaders stated that a truce must be in place before hostages are freed, Israel must evacuate Gaza, and all Gazans must be allowed to return to the houses they were forced to flee, Hamas promised to continue participating in the Cairo talks.
“We are showing the required flexibility in order to reach a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people, but the occupation is still evading the entitlements of this agreement,” Hamas stated in a statement.
Israel, according to a previous source, is not attending the Cairo negotiations because Hamas has declined to release a list of the hostages who are still alive. Since hostages are dispersed around the combat zone, Hamas claims that this is not feasible without a ceasefire.
After the deadly Hamas raid on Israel on October 7, Israeli forces launched an offensive in Gaza. Since the discussions started in Cairo on Sunday, they have not stopped pounding the Palestinian enclave, and the already grave humanitarian situation in the heavily populated coastal strip has gotten worse.
“We lose dozens of martyrs [deaths] every day.” We demand an immediate cease-fire,” Shaban Abdel-Raouf, a Gaza City-born Palestinian electrician and father of five who is currently in Khan Younis in the south, said to Reuters on a chat app.
All night long, Khan Younis residents claimed to have heard explosions. According to witnesses, Israeli aeroplanes attacked portions of the southern city of Rafah as well as the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp and Deir Al-Balah city in central Gaza.
With 86 deaths recorded in the last day, the number of confirmed deaths in Israel’s onslaught has surpassed 30,700, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza.
Seven individuals were killed, according to Palestinian health sources, after Israeli forces opened fire on gatherings in central Gaza. Regarding the report, Israel refrained from commenting right away, and the details remained ambiguous.
Negotiate on the table
The goal of reaching a settlement before Ramadan is because leaders have a strong incentive to close a deal before the fasting month, which regularly sees a spike in Palestinian-Israeli violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as well as hatred towards Israel across the Arab and Muslim world.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hamas would release a portion of the prisoners it is still holding after the attack on October 7, which Israel claims claimed 1,200 lives and kidnapped 253.
Hospitals would treat severely malnourished children while aid to Gaza would be increased in an attempt to prevent starvation, and Hamas would produce a list of all the hostages held in Gaza.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official in Beirut, stated that a truce must precede any prisoner exchange.
Israel declares that it will not halt the conflict until Hamas is “eliminated” and only wants a temporary ceasefire in order to free the hostages in Gaza and allow more humanitarian aid in.
Senior Hamas leader Bassem Naim stated that “the ball now is in the Americans’ court” and that Hamas has sent its own draft agreement, waiting on an Israeli response.
As per Reuters’ access to the draft resolution, the US changed the wording to support “an immediate ceasefire of roughly six weeks in Gaza together with the release of all hostages” on Tuesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris made direct comments to the US two weeks ago, calling on Israel to take greater action to alleviate the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. These comments are reflected in the third revision of the text.
In line with her remarks, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron declared on Wednesday that he would alert Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz to the fact that London’s tolerance for the “dreadful suffering” in Gaza was running low.
A 15-year-old girl passed away at a Gaza City hospital on Wednesday due to malnourishment and dehydration, according to spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra for the Gaza health ministry. She was the 18th victim of this type to pass away in less than a week. The deaths were not corroborated by Reuters.
Israel has declared that it is dedicated to enhancing Gaza’s humanitarian conditions and that aid for residents would not be restricted. It has attributed any delivery problems to the United Nations, claiming limitations
