The president of the United States, Joe Biden, is hopeful that by next Monday, March 4, Israel and Hamas will have reached a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, six days before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, according to what he stated before journalists on Monday. However, both sides downgraded optimism about a close deal.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to negotiate a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to release some of the hundred hostages it is holding in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week suspension of fighting, the delivery of aid to the strip and alleviating the terrible conditions of civilians in Gaza, where drinking water, food, medicine and basic services, such as healthcare and electricity, are in short supply. The start of Ramadan, expected to be around March 10, is seen as an unofficial deadline to reach a deal.
Biden’s remarks – which came on the eve of the Michigan primary, where he faces pressure from the state’s large Arab-American population for his strong support for Israel’s offensive – “surprised” Israeli Prime Minister Banyamin Netanyahu. , a senior political official in Israel told ABC News on Tuesday.
Netanyahu, for his part, avoided mentioning the possible agreement in a statement issued yesterday and recalled that, according to a latest survey, 82% of the American population supports Israel against Hamas. “This is a strong argument to continue our war against Hamas until total victory,” deduced Netanyahu, who has promised not to stop the war until “dismantling” the Islamist group, guaranteeing that it will no longer be a threat to Israel and recovering all the hostages.
The Israeli officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media, said Israel wants an agreement immediately, but that Hamas continues to make excessive demands. They also noted that Israel is insisting that female soldiers be part of the first group of hostages released under any truce agreement.
According to sources consulted by Reuters and AP, the draft agreement that is on the table is a 40-day truce during which Hamas would release some 40 hostages – among them women, children under 19 or over 50, and the sick, which excludes people of fighting age – in exchange for some 400 Palestinian detainees, in a ratio of ten to one. The pact would also include the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas and the return of residents to their homes.
A senior Hamas official told Reuters on Tuesday of the negotiations, currently taking place in Qatar, that “there are still big gaps to close.” Another official from the Islamist group, Ahmad Abdel Hadi, expressed along the same lines, indicating that Biden’s optimism regarding the proximity of an agreement was premature to the pan-Arab television channel Al Mayadeen. “The return of the displaced to the northern areas of Gaza is considered the obstacle to completing the agreement so far,” a Hamas source told the Efe agency.
Hamas continues to insist, as it has done on previous occasions, that Israel end the war definitively after the truce, a condition that Netanyahu described at the time as “delusional.”
The political leader of Hamas in exile (Qatar), Ismail Haniye, stated this Wednesday that the group shows flexibility in negotiations with Israel, but at the same time it is preparing to continue fighting. In a televised speech, Haniyeh called on all Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to the Al Aqsa Mosque, on the Esplanade of Mosques in East Jerusalem and a historic flashpoint between Muslims and Jews, to pray on the first day of Ramadan, making it more likely that March 10 will be the deadline to reach an agreement. Al Aqsa is the third holiest site in Islam.
Haniye also called on the Arab world to work to end the famine in Gaza and the “axis of resistance”, led by Iran, to intensify its efforts on behalf of the people of the strip.
At a press conference in Doha on Tuesday, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al Ansari said that while he was “optimistic” about the course of talks on the deal, there had not yet been any significant progress that would worth announcing.
The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim ben Hamad al Thani, visiting Paris, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, reiterated on Tuesday their common desire to achieve “a ceasefire very quickly.” The release of the hostages is an absolute “priority” for Paris, Macron recalled. The emir of Qatar, for his part, denounced a “genocide of the Palestinian people,” with “forced displacements” and “savage bombings.”
Israel and Hamas have been locked in a war since October 7, 2023, when the Islamist group carried out an attack against Israeli territory that included the launching of rockets and the simultaneous infiltration of thousands of its militiamen who massacred some 1,200 people in the territory. Israeli and kidnapped another 250, according to the Israeli government. The Israeli army responded with a large-scale air and ground military operation over Gaza, which has killed nearly 30,000 people, according to health authorities in the enclave.
The international community is alarmed at a worsening of the humanitarian catastrophe already existing in the enclave, if the ground offensive announced by the Israeli Prime Minister takes place on Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where nearly a million are trapped. and a half Palestinians, according to the UN, against the closed border with Egypt.
“If nothing changes, famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), warned the UN Security Council. No convoy has been able to reach the north of the strip since January 23, according to the UN, which denounces the obstructions of the Israeli authorities.
Two babies died of dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra said. He warned that infant mortality threatens to increase. The United Nations Population Fund highlighted that the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in the city of Rafah has warned that newborns were dying because mothers could not get prenatal or postnatal care.
