Hamas was not present at the ceasefire talks that took place in Doha, Qatar. (File)
Doha, Qatar:
Hamas said on Friday it rejected “new conditions” in a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza that US-led mediators presented during two days of talks in Qatar.
Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to alleviate the suffering suffered during more than 10 months of war, but US President Joe Biden insisted after the latest round of talks that “we are closer than ever before”.
He is sending US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push through the latest proposal, the State Department said.
Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators have been trying to finalize the details of a framework that Biden initially outlined in May and that he said Israel had proposed.
In a joint statement, the mediators said they had presented both sides with a proposal that “bridges the remaining gaps” and that they will continue to work in the coming days to hammer out details on humanitarian provisions and the exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Talks aimed at securing a quick deal will resume in Cairo “before the end of next week”.
Hamas, which did not attend the Doha talks, quickly announced its opposition to what it called Israel’s “new conditions” in the latest plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas to accept Biden’s framework.
Threats by Iran and its allies to attack Israel have given renewed urgency to efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, with mediators seeking an agreement in the hope of a broader regional to defuse conflict.
“No one in the region should take action to undermine this process,” Biden warned, later telling reporters: “There are still some issues, I think we have a chance.”
– ‘Cataclysmic’ consequences –
An informed source told AFP that Hamas had objected to the conditions regarding the detention of Israeli forces at Gaza’s border with Egypt and the conditions regarding the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.
Western ally Jordan, however, laid the blame squarely on Netanyahu for blocking a deal, with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urging pressure “from anyone who wants to see this through.”
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne held talks in Israel on Friday to put pressure on the deal.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his visiting colleagues that he expects foreign support if Iran seeks revenge for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Sejourne responded that it would be “inappropriate” to talk about the response to an attack when diplomacy to prevent it is in high gear.
A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Iran would face “catastrophic” consequences if it attacked Israel.
A deadly attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank late Thursday sparked international condemnation and calls for sanctions, including on ministers, over the wave of settler violence against Palestinians since the start of the Gaza war.
The Israeli army said that “dozens of Israeli civilians, some masked”, entered the village of Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, threw stones and Molotov cocktails”. A Palestinian man was shot dead.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in the West Bank described the attack as “organized state terrorism.”
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he would propose sanctions against the Israeli government for “enabling the violence of the Jewish settlers.”
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a proponent of West Bank settlements, quickly joined other Israeli leaders in condemning Thursday’s attack by “criminals.”
First polio case recorded
Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 who the army says are dead. More than a hundred people were released during a week-long ceasefire in November.
As of Thursday, the toll from Israel’s military retaliation campaign topped 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.
The war has devastated the besieged area’s healthcare infrastructure, prompting repeated warnings from the World Health Organization about the risk of preventable diseases.
On Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza had been diagnosed with polio, the first case in the territory in 25 years, according to the WHO.
The announcement came hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against poliovirus type 2, which was first found in the territory’s wastewater in June.
While ceasefire talks were ongoing, thousands of civilians were once again moving within Palestinian territory after the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders ahead of an impending military action.
The UN estimates the orders will affect more than 170,000 people, forcing them to pack into the shrinking remains of an area declared a humanitarian safe zone.
According to the UN, the area where people have to move covers only 11 percent of Gaza.
“During every round of negotiations they apply pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” Issa Murad, a Palestinian who has fled to Deir al-Balah, said of the Israeli forces.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
