Agree to Gaza truce in a week or face Rafah op, Israel warns Hamas
By Pooja Sood | Published | No Comments
In its latest warning to Hamas, Israel has given the Palestinian Islamist group one week to agree to a Gaza ceasefire deal or else it will go ahead with the Rafah military operation, Egyptian officials told The Wall Street Journal on Friday. Egypt along with Qatar and the US are leading efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas, and reach a deal for a Gaza truce, in an attempt to bring to an end the war ongoing since October 7.
Hamas, meanwhile, said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Egypt’s capital Cairo to discuss a ceasefire deal and the release of hostages held in Gaza, hours after US CIA director William Burns arrived in the city, news agency Reuters reported, citing Egyptian sources.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to conduct a military operation in Rafah, despite constant warnings from US President Joe Biden and other western officials that it would lead to more civilian deaths and a worse humanitarian crisis.
Here are the top 5 developments in the Israel-Hamas war:
Hamas and CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, an Egyptian source told news agency Reuters. The Palestinian Islamist group said its delegation were rravelling to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal for a Gaza truce agreement. “We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians’ demands,” Hamas said in a statement.
A US official said the country believed there had been some progress in ceasefire and hostage release talks but was still waiting to hear more. Furthermore, Israel this week briefed US President Joe Biden’s administration on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential Rafah assault, The Associated Press reported.
Axios reported, citing senior Israeli officials, that they saw “early indications” of Hama agreeing to the first stage of the truce deal. This involves the release of women, children, the elderly and sick hostages – even without an Israeli commitment to end the war, but with fewer hostages to be freed in exchange for more Palestinian security prisoners.
However, another senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Israel has yet to hear that Hamas has agreed to retreat from its “maximalist positions”.
The United Nations has warned that an Israeli military operation in Gaza could be a “slaughter of civilians and an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation” in the Strip since it’s mainly run out of the southern Gazan city. Aid operations in Rafah include medical clinics, warehouses filled with humanitarian supplies, food distribution points and 50 centres for acutely malnourished children, the UN added.
A top UN official said on Friday that northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after over six months of war and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. “It’s horror,” Cindy McCain, the American director of the UN World Food Program told NBC. “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
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