Gaza, is the truce with Israel really close? 40-day halt and free hostages, ceasefire talks in Cairo

If in Cairo they are looking for the difficult solution to a problem that could lead to a ceasefire and the release of a group of hostages in the hands of Hamas for 206 days, in Riyadh they are starting to plan a future for the Strip when it is freed from grip of the terrorists who have governed it since 2006. Different and distant but closely intertwined scenarios and horizons. And so for one day the world’s attention returns to the Egyptian capital, where a response from Hamas to the Israeli proposal for a forty-day truce and the exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners held in the prisons of the Jewish state is expected. After the agreements last November which led to the exchange of 105 hostages for 240 Palestinian prisoners, Israel would have agreed to reduce the number of elderly people, women and children kidnapped by the terrorists whose release it is now asking for. No longer forty but “only” thirty-three. A tragically realistic estimate which would correspond to the number of civilians who survived the six months of war. Israeli mediators have also expressed their willingness to release a large number of Palestinian detainees.

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Negotiation

“An extraordinarily generous proposal” defined it by Secretary of State Blinken, who asked Hamas to hurry up and accept it. This was echoed by the British Foreign Minister David Cameron, who said that all the eyes of the world should now be turned towards Hamas and concluded with a peremptory invitation: “Take this agreement”, adding – perhaps unrealistically – that the negotiation could lead to the potential release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. And the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, while maintaining a cautiously waiting position, speaks of a “turning point” in the negotiations and urges Hamas to accept a compromise “which would allow us to lower the tone of the military conflict”.

Hamas releases videos of two hostages in Gaza, the American Keith Siegel and the Israeli Omri Miran

The risks

The Paris Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is also pleased with how the negotiations are now proceeding more quickly but specifies that we must not give in to the optimism of the moment and therefore the warning is not to lower our guard and adds that the “catastrophic situation in Gaza has urgent need for a ceasefire.” To these concerns, others have been added in recent days, linked to a possible arrest warrant that the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court could sign against Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant and Chief of Staff Halevi for crimes of war. And the fear of the United States and several allied countries is that if this bomb exploded it could undermine any agreements for a truce. The strongest pressure therefore comes precisely from Riyadh where the heads of the American, French, Italian and other G7 components meet the representatives of the main Gulf countries gathered for the World Economic Forum. There is talk of a more distant horizon, the post-war period in Gaza, where a leading role will certainly be played by Saudi Arabia. But starting to envisage future scenarios on the one hand exorcises the nightmares of an expansion of the conflict on a regional basis which only a few weeks ago seemed to take shape. On the other hand, it sends reassuring signals to Israel, easing that sense of isolation to which the harsh conflict and the thousands of deaths have confined it. «The war will remain until all the hostages are freed» says Cameron in a realistic tone who then openly addresses one of the most sensitive topics. “The departure of the leaders from Gaza could pave the way for a political solution.” And with a singular coincidence of times many kilometers away, an important Hamas leader, the deputy political leader Musa Abu Marzuk, speaks of the possibility that those responsible for the Islamic group may be forced to leave Qatar where they have found hospitality and refuge up until now, and makes it known that in this case “the leaders will move to Jordan”.

The raids

But if talking about the future of Gaza may currently still seem like a step in the dark, the present remains high tension: yesterday the Egyptian presidency announced that Abdel Fattah al Sisi received a phone call from US President Joe Biden in which it was underlined the danger of military escalation in Rafah. In recent days, awaiting the announced ground operation, the Israeli army has maintained pressure on that southern corner of the Strip where one and a half million people are crowded. Also yesterday, a series of air strikes caused the death of 27 people, bringing the toll in the last twenty-four hours to a total of 34, according to numbers released by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. And the families of 400 soldiers have launched an appeal to avert the invasion.

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