In a few hours yesterday, while the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo was discussing the proposed truce with Israel with Egyptian mediators, violent air attacks began on various areas of Gaza. Israeli F-16s and drones dropped high-yield bombs on the Nuseirat refugee camp, recently one of the most targeted because, Israel claims, it is the “stronghold” of one of the two Hamas battalions in the central area of the Strip (the another four would be in Rafah). The dead and wounded were pulled out shortly afterwards from a house on Ahmed Yassin Street, in the Al-Saftawi area of northern Gaza.
Another house was hit directly near the police station in Salah al Din Street and bombs hit the Al Fukhari mosque, east of Khan Younis, and the towns of al Mughraqa and az-Zahra. Artillery instead pounded the northern areas of Beit Lahiya. In those same hours in the West Bank, in Deir al Ghusoun (Tulkarem), five Palestinian fighters were killed. The Israeli spokesperson speaks of an “anti-terrorism operation”. The army imposed a curfew, then surrounded and finally destroyed two houses where the Palestinian fighters had taken refuge with bulldozers and anti-tank rocket fire.
This sad concert for fighter-bombers, artillery and tanks accompanied a day that was defined from the first hours as the “right” one for the long-awaited – by over two million civilians – truce in Gaza. Reported first by the Saudi newspaper Sharq and then from the Israeli and Palestinian media, rumors reported that Hamas was willing to accept the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire. Voices following the relentless pressure that the United States, through the mouth of Secretary of State Blinken – “between the truce and the population of Gaza there is only Hamas”, he said several times -, Egypt and partly Qatar have exercised on the political leadership of the Palestinian militant organization.
Then new details of the draft agreement emerged. It would consist of three phases of 40, 42 and 42 days without fighting and bombing. In the first, Hamas would release 33 of the approximately 130 Israeli hostages in Gaza, in the second the other live hostages, in the third there would be an exchange of bodies between the two parties.
The agreement includes among its main points the release of a number, which yesterday evening was still undefined, of Palestinian prisoners. Another Saudi newspaper has hypothesized the release of Marwan Barghouti, the “Palestinian Mandela”, the most iconic of political prisoners, who however Israel would not allow to return to his city, Ramallah, but would be forced into a sort of confinement in Gaza. In addition to the details of the agreement, we also learned of an alleged “yes” from Hamas to the release of the first 33 hostages without the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, as well as a guarantee given by the United States to the Islamist movement that Israel will not resume the attacks after the hostages returned home.
However, only the official declarations of the two parties count and the main issue to be resolved yesterday evening remained the duration of the truce. Hamas wants an end to the Israeli offensive and a permanent ceasefire. Israel, as “anonymous government officials” repeated twice yesterday (Netanyahu himself?), excludes ending the war. Damping the enthusiasm of some, Tel Aviv announced that an Israeli delegation will go to Cairo only “if there is a response from Hamas that has a horizon for negotiations.” And, as Netanyahu himself said a couple of days ago, with or without the release of the hostages Israel will attack the city of Rafah.
“As decided by the political leaders, the army will enter Rafah and destroy the remaining Hamas battalions,” he told the Times of Israel an Israeli leader. Words that appeased the anger of far-right ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who call for endless war and which, at the same time, infuriated the thousands of Israelis who took to the streets of Tel Aviv last night and in other cities to ask for the closure of the agreement that will bring the hostages home. For his part, a Hamas spokesperson, Taher Nunu, speaking to Reuters reiterated that «Any agreement must include a complete and permanent end to (Israeli) aggression; the total withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip; the return of displaced people to their homes; and a real prisoner exchange, as well as reconstruction and an end to the (Israeli) blockade of Gaza.”
In the background are the Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israel’s offensive after the Hamas attack on 7 October. There are 34,654 according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health. Among them there are over 100 journalists and information workers. Israel denies targeting reporters, but often describes them as colluding with Hamas and other “terrorist organizations.” Like Hamza Dahdouh, 27 years old, (son of the well-known journalist Wael Dahdouh of Al Jazeera) and small video drone operator Mustafa Thuraya, 30, killed in January by an Israeli military drone along with their driver.
According to Israel, Thuraya belonged to Hamas and Dahdouh to Islamic Jihad and both were monitoring the movements of Israeli troops with the drone. The Washington Post published images shot by Thuraya that contradict the Israeli version. No Israeli soldiers, planes or other military equipment are visible in the footage shot that day raising questions about why the journalists were targeted. Furthermore, Dahdouh had obtained permission from Israel to leave Gaza, a rare privilege that would hardly have been granted to a Hamas or Jihad militant.
