Gaza truce talks expected to resume in Egypt – Technologist

Talks were expected to resume on Saturday, May 4, in Egypt aimed at halting months of war in Gaza between Hamas militants and Israel that have triggered widening protests around the world.

Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been waiting for the Palestinian Islamist movement to respond to a proposal that, according to details released by Britain, would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Months of negotiations stalled in part on Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated vows to crush the group’s remaining fighters in Rafah, along the Egyptian border in Gaza’s far south.

The prospect of a Rafah invasion, threatened for three months alongside stop-start truce talks, has sparked intensifying global alarm. After a meeting in Cairo about a week ago, the Hamas delegation returned to Qatar, where its chief Ismail Haniyeh is based, to discuss the truce proposal.

‘Open mind’

Accepting a ceasefire deal with Israel should be a “no-brainer” for Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late on Friday, May 3. “The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said.

Blinken also reiterated Washington’s objections to a Rafah offensive, saying Israel has not presented a plan to protect the civilians sheltering there.

The World Health Organization says 1.2 million people, half of Gaza’s population, have sought refuge in Rafah. Aid groups say an invasion would only add to an existing humanitarian catastrophe. On Friday WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed deep concern “that a full-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a bloodbath.”

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said a military operation in Rafah could “strike a disastrous blow” to agencies struggling to provide aid.

Al-Qahera News, linked to Egyptian intelligence services, quoted an unnamed high-ranking source as saying “there is significant progress in the negotiations” and that the Egyptian mediators have “reached an agreed-upon formula on most points of contention.”

On Friday senior Hamas official Hossam Badran had accused Netanyahu of trying to undermine the latest proposal with his threats to keep fighting with or without a deal. Badran said Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement.”