Talks to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas
Talks to stop the fighting gained momentum recently and were ongoing today in Qatar, one of the mediating countries.
Officials from Qatar, the United States and Egypt were working on an agreement proposal that, according to authorities and mediawould allow Hamas to release some of the hostages which he has in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week suspension of fighting and an increase in humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.
The beginning of Ramadan, which will pass with the conflict in the middle
ANDhe start of Ramadan, expected on March 10, is seen as a deadline to reach an agreement. The month sacred is a time of greatest religious fervor and daily fasting for hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world and in the past coincided with a sharp rise in tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
“He Ramadan is near and there has been an agreement from the Israelis that they will not carry out activities during Ramadan to give us time to get all the hostages out,” Biden said last night in an interview on an NBC television program.
Earlier, the president said he hoped the truce agreement would be reached next week. ““My hope is that we have a ceasefire by next Monday,” Biden said. to journalists during a trip to New York. Israeli officials quoted by US media as saying that Biden’s comments were surprising and they were not done in coordination with the country’s Government.
The response of Israel and Hamas to Biden’s statements
Netanyahu “was surprised” by the president’s claim that a truce between Israel and Hamas was close, reported the American network ABCwhich cited an unnamed senior Israeli official, who added that the Palestinian group continues to make excessive demands.
A Hamas official Ahmad Abdel-Hadidownplayed the progress and said the group, which is demanding that Israel definitively end the offensive and withdraw all its troops from Gaza, will not soften its demands. “The resistance is not interested in giving up any of its demandsand what is proposed does not comply with what I had requested”, said the Hamas leader to the pan-Arab television channel Al Mayadeen.
Minister Majed al-Ansari’s press conference in Qatar
At a news conference in Doha, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said the emirate was “optimistic” about the talks, without giving further details. The spokesperson said that he had no comment on Biden’s statements, that there was no progress to announce yet, but that Qatar was “working hard.”
The emir of Qatar, Tamim ben Hamad Al Thani, whose mediation was key to closing a first truce in November, will visit Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday, the French Presidency announced. The emir met with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar as part of efforts for an “agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire,” the official Qatar News Agency reported.
The agreement that Israel and Hamas could have
means of Egypt, the United States, Qatar and Israel reported that the draft agreement includes the release of up to 40 women and Hamas hostages elderly in exchange for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women, minors and elderly people.
The proposed six-week pause in the fighting would allow hundreds of trucks to enter Gaza with desperately needed humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians.
Biden’s support for Israel
Biden, who showed unconditional support for Israel throughout the war, He said he believes Netanyahu’s government was slowing its airstrikes on Rafah, where more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people now live after fleeing other cities.
“They have to do it, and they have committed to me that they will ensure that there is the ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafah before they go to eliminate the rest of Hamas.”, said. Netanyahu said a ground attack on Rafah is an inevitable component of Israel’s strategy to crush Hamas.
Yesterday he Army presented operational plans for the offensive for Cabinet approval, as well as evacuation plans for Palestinian civilians.
What is happening in the Gaza Strip
In In the last 24 hours, 96 people died in the Gaza Strip, With which there are now at least 29,878 dead and more than 70,000 wounded in Israeli bombings in the enclave and in fighting since the beginning of the offensive against Hamas, on October 7, according to the Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government in Gaza.
The offensive started after Hamas militiamen infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel They killed about 1,200 people that daymostly civilians, and kidnapped another 240, including around twenty Argentines.
The only moment of peace in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas
He first and only ceasefire of the war, at the end of Novemberallowed the release of about 100 hostages – mostly women, children and foreign citizens – in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, for a week without bombing or fighting.
Approximately 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but Israel says that about a quarter of them are dead.
Violence in the West Bank
Violence spread to the West Bankthe other Palestinian territories, which are occupied by Israel, and other parts of the Middle East where or from where pro-Palestinian Arab militias attacked US military bases and Israeli territory.
In In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed three Palestinians last night during an operation in the Faraa refugee camp, near the northern city of Tubas, reported the autonomous government of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Refugee camp authorities said that one of the dead was a member of an armed group fighting against the Israeli occupation that and the other two were civilians “who were in their homes and who were killed by snipers.”
The conflict in the Red Sea
Also today, The United States said it destroyed drones and anti-ship cruise missile systems yesterday of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea. At first, these attacks They were theoretically directed only at ships linked to Israel, but in recent weeks they were expanded to ships from the United States and the United Kingdom, which launched bombing raids on Yemeni rebel positions.
Both countriesIn fact, they imposed today sanctions against two Iranians and three entities that facilitate and support Houthi operations, announced British Foreign Minister David Cameron.
The sanctions include Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, deputy commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Sa’id al-Jamal, a financier who runs a network of companies screen and ships that economically benefit the Houthis.
Source: Ambito
