Negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have resumed in Cairo, Egypt, in recent days. The meetings had entered a stalemate mainly due to Israel’s request to release 40 hostages, mainly women and elderly people, who however Hamas was unable to find. Now Israel has presented a new proposal that provides for the release of 33 hostages in exchange for a 40-day ceasefire.
An Israeli official who asked to remain anonymous explained to the New York Times that the softening of the request was partly due to the fact that, according to Israel, some of the 40 hostages initially requested to stop the fighting were dead. Today Israel is expected to send its own diplomatic delegation to Cairo to participate in the discussions. Meanwhile, the Hamas delegation has left the city to study the proposal, and will return with a written response.
– Read also: Israel negotiates hostages, but it is not known how many of them are still alive
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other groups killed approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 253. Since then, 112 hostages have been released alive: 105 freed by Hamas during a four-day truce in November, four released unilaterally by the group and three rescued by Israeli army during a military operation. It is also known for certain that 12 hostages were killed, whose bodies were recovered (three of these were killed by the Israeli army by mistake). Israeli intelligence believes that there are currently 129 hostages in Gaza, but that 34 of them are believed to have died. Israel claims that all the dead hostages were killed by Hamas, which in turn claims they died as a result of Israeli bombing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Israel’s new proposal “extremely generous”, and said that the responsibility for approving the agreement now lies in the hands of Hamas: “At the moment, the only thing that stands between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” he said while visiting the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that the new proposal under discussion these days “takes into consideration the requests of both sides”, and added that the diplomats involved in the negotiations are waiting to receive a response.
Meanwhile on Monday in Tel Aviv, Israel, thousands of people demonstrated to ask Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to find an agreement to free the hostages. There were some clashes between protesters and police, and at least three people were arrested.
Protesters in Tel Aviv display the slogan: “Rafah can wait, they can’t”, referring to Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip (Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)
Beyond the number of Israeli hostages to be released, another major obstacle in the negotiations is that Hamas is asking for a permanent ceasefire, therefore essentially the end of the war in the Gaza Strip, while so far Israel has always said it is willing to guarantee only a temporary break. According to the journalist from Axios Barak Ravid, very well informed, the agreement proposed in recent days by Israel would also include the possibility of discussing the “restoration of a sustainable situation of calm” in Gaza, a rather vague expression which however alludes to a more stable and long-lasting.
Meanwhile, the fighting in the Strip continues. The government and the Israeli army claim that they still intend to attack Rafah by land, in the south of the Strip: it is the only one where the Israeli army has not yet entered, at the moment there are around 1.4 million refugees there civilians. Some satellite images show that Israel is preparing a tent city to relocate them before the incursion. In the night between Sunday and Monday at least 27 people were killed by Israeli bombing in Rafah.
– Read also: Israel is ready to attack Rafah
