The leader of the Islamist group Hamas, Ismail Haniya, began talks this Wednesday in Egypt on a new provisional truce in the war with Israel, which coincide with contacts aimed at the release of hostages and more humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, devastating and deadly Israeli aerial bombardments have not ceased, in addition to fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters, and when half of the civilian population faces extreme or severe hunger, according to the UN.
Negotiations and international pressure for a second truce have intensified, and Israeli bombing and ground operations continue.
The one-week pause at the end of November, negotiated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, and a reinforcement of the scarce humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which has since been subjected . October 9 to a full Israeli siege.
Ismail Haniya, based in Qatar, arrived in Egypt today, denouncing the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in Gaza since 2007 and considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
The talks in Cairo will address a “provisional one-week truce in exchange for the release by Hamas of 40 Israeli prisoners, including women, children and men,” a source close to Hamas told the AFP news agency.
The same source stated that only civilians and not military hostages will be released, adding that the truce “will probably be renewed.”
However, a Hamas official in Gaza, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that “a complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army from Gaza are a precondition for any negotiations on an exchange” of Israeli hostages by Palestinian prisoners.
Before his departure, Haniya met in Doha with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a country allied to Hamas and an enemy of Israel.
According to a source in Islamic Jihad, which fights alongside Hamas, its leader, Ziyad al-Nakhala, will also travel to Cairo early next week.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a meeting with relatives of the hostages that he had recently sent “the head of Mossad twice to Europe.” [serviços secretos israelitas] promote a liberation process”.
Even today, a source close to the talks told AFP that “discussions continue” after “a constructive meeting that took place this week in Warsaw between the director of the Mossad [David] Barnea, the Prime Minister of Qatar [Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani] and the director of the CIA [William] Burns.”
“The objective was to reach an agreement on the release of the hostages (…) in exchange for a truce and the eventual release of [prisioneiros] Palestinians,” he added.
At the same time, discussions continue today in the UN Security Council, which since Monday has been trying to adopt a resolution that would accelerate the sending of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The vote has already been postponed twice and member states are looking for a formula to avoid a new veto from the United States, Israel’s main ally. The text, which initially called for an “urgent and lasting cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, now suggests a “suspension” of fighting.
On the ground, Israeli attacks continue, with devastating consequences for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. According to the UN, which has described it as a “catastrophic situation”, most hospitals are out of service and 85% of the population, around 1.9 million inhabitants, are displaced after abandoning their neighborhoods, which were almost destroyed in their entirety.
According to a report by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published today, half of the population of the Gaza Strip suffers from extreme or severe illnesses, and 90% are periodically deprived of food throughout the day.
Despite the arrival of humanitarian aid, with a first column arriving today from Jordan, supplies are far from meeting needs.
“Without clean water, food and health facilities that only a humanitarian ceasefire can guarantee, the number of children dying from disease could exceed those from bombings,” UNICEF warned.
The recent war between Israel and Hamas was triggered after an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli territory on October 7.
In total, 1,140 people, mostly civilians, died that day, according to a tally by the AFP news agency based on the latest official Israeli figures.
In retaliation, Israel, which has promised to destroy the Islamist movement, has been bombing the Gaza Strip since October 7, where, according to the local Hamas government, some 19,670 people have been killed, most of them civilians.
The Jewish authorities indicated today that their Army has lost 134 men since the beginning of the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on October 27.
Source: TSF
