US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been back in Israel since yesterday, yet another attempt to push for an agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza. The eighth trip in eight months since the outbreak of the war will then take the head of US diplomacy, who has already stopped in Egypt, also to Jordan and Qatar. This time, however, Blinken moves – for the first time – on the strength of a clear and almost unanimous UN mandate. In fact, yesterday evening at the UN Security Council the Security Council gave its support to the staged plan for a truce capable of turning into a real ceasefire: this is the plan unveiled by Biden last May 31st and which according to the USA was defined by Israel itself. This is why the reaction reiterated this morning by Hamas has the potential of a turning point. The fundamentalist movement “accepts the ceasefire resolution of the UN Security Council and is led to negotiate on the details”, he told Reuters a senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, adding that it is the US’s responsibility to make sure Israel accepts it too. Blinken’s reaction was immediate, saying he welcomed Hamas’ position as an “encouraging sign”, which sounds like one of the most explicit in support of an agreement since the beginning of the war, as underlined byAssociated Press.
Devil in the details
On the other hand, Blinken announced this morning that he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night, ensuring that he “reaffirmed his commitment to the proposed ceasefire agreement”. The devil however – as months of fruitless attempts have taught – lies in the “details” of the negotiations referred to by Abu Zuhri himself, and which last night pushed Russia to prudently abstain from the UN. Are Israel and Hamas really saying they are ready to accept the same plan? Times and methods of the withdrawal of the IDF troops, of identification and return of the hostages, Palestinian prisoners to be released: on all these aspects the balance to be reached is extremely delicate. Not to mention that the resistance of the more extremist fringes must be overcome on both sides. On the one hand, the ultra-right of Smotrich and Ben Gvir in Israel, ready to blow up the government in the event of an agreement that does not allow “total victory” in the Gaza war; on the other, the irreducible head of Hamas in the Strip Yahya Sinwar, who according to the Wall Street Journal in messages with the rest of the movement’s leadership he continues to reiterate the line of the necessary “martyrdom” of the Palestinians in Gaza to the bitter end: the death of tens of thousands of civilians is equivalent to a “necessary sacrifice” in the name of the all-out resistance of Hamas, which according to Sinwar’s calculations “may last for months yet.”
