Arab News – April 27, 2024
Hamas says it received Israel’s response to its ceasefire proposal
CAIRO: Hamas said it had received on Saturday Israel’s official response to its latest ceasefire proposal and will study it before submitting its reply, the group’s deputy Gaza chief said in a statement.
“Hamas has received today the official response of the Zionist occupation to the proposal presented to the Egyptian and the Qatari mediators on April 13,” Khalil Al-Hayya, who is currently based in Qatar, said in a statement published by the group.
After more than six months of war with Israel in Gaza, the negotiations remain deadlocked, with Hamas sticking to its demands that any agreement must end the war.
An Egyptian delegation visited Israel for discussion with Israeli officials on Friday, looking for a way to restart talks to end the conflict and return remaining hostages taken when Hamas fighters stormed into Israeli towns on Oct. 7, an official briefed on the meetings said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel had no new proposals to make, although it was willing to consider a limited truce in which 33 hostages would be released by Hamas, instead of the 40 previously under discussion.
On Thursday, the United States and 17 other countries appealed to Hamas to release all of its hostages as a pathway to end the crisis.
Hamas has vowed not to relent to international pressure but in a statement it issued on Friday it said it was “open to any ideas or proposals that take into account the needs and rights of our people.”
However, it stuck to its key demands that Israel has rejected, and criticized the joint statement issued by the USand others for not calling for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday he saw fresh momentum in talks to end the war and return the remaining hostages.
Citing two Israeli officials, Axios reported that Israel told the Egyptian mediators on Friday that it was ready to give hostage negotiations “one last chance” to reach a deal with Hamas before moving forward with an invasion of Rafah, the last refuge for around a million Palestinians who fled Israeli forces further north in Gaza earlier in the war.
Meanwhile, in Rafah, Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike on a house killed at least five people and wounded others.
Hamas fighters stormed into Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages. Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in an onslaught that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2500121/middle-east
Information Clearing House – April 26, 2024
‘First Rafah, Then Hezbollah, Then Iran’: Israel’s Government Plans for More War
By Ravit Hecht
This government has a busy schedule of wars planned for us, even though the worst disaster in Israel’s history occurred on its watch and more than half the public loathes it and doesn’t believe a word its leader says.
“First Rafah, then Hezbollah, then Iran,” one minister said of its plans for yet more reserve duty and suffering. It’s just a pity that the target bank devised by ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Yitzchak Goldknopf doesn’t also include Russia and China.
Unlike the National Unity Party, which has been stuck for months in the narrative of “two or three critical weeks until it decides whether to leave the government (if X or Y happens),” the government’s original members are fairly certain about their jobs.
They’re convinced the government will survive a crisis over a law to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from military service during the Knesset’s summer session. In other words, it will pass a nonsensical plan wrapped in pretty words that will soften the right’s moral opposition a bit, even as Israel races toward fateful wars.
The Rafah operation – no one has yet told rightists that the war has ended, and Hamas is still standing – will soon take place, now that the U.S. Senate has approved a new aid package for Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden committed suicide over that package. Yes, that same Biden whom Minister Amichai Chikli said he wouldnﾒt vote for, because “the U.S. under his leadership doesn’t project strength, and that harms Israel.” Chikli prefers Donald Trump.
“Chikli sounded utterly idiotic,” a fellow Likud party minister said. “Admittedly, he reflects a certain sentiment that exists on the right. But to say that a minute after Biden approved a $14 billion aid package is simply irresponsible.”
Netanyahu’s office was furious at Chikli, the minister added. But Netanyahu himself didn’t speak out. He thereby legitimized another statement patently harmful to Israel’s immediate interests, a fairly common ritual among cabinet members. “The prime minister’s silence is simply a disgrace,” another minister from the governing coalition said
Some members of this 64-MK coalition are tearing their hair out over the continuing irresponsibility. But none of them intends to do anything, because truly terrible consequences are still being averted. Time after time, another earnest lover of Israel – the insurance policy of the government – suppresses his revulsion at the government and comes to the country’s aid, thereby saving an ungrateful Netanyahu and his ungrateful government.
The Shas party is trying to put forth ideas for a broad national unity government that would also include Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid in exchange for an agreed date for new elections. That, they hope, would erode the power of “those maniacs” – namely, all the Itamar Ben-Gvir wannabes in Likud. But above all, they hope it would prevent an election being held even sooner.
But Netanyahu has zero interest in giving this gift. He depicts the very word “election” as criminal and unpatriotic. And even if he is forced to promise to hold one, nobody will believe him.
Shas Chairman Arye Dery “won’t gain anything from early elections,” one government source said. “It will only hurt him. Therefore, despite his concern for Israel’s security, there’s no reason to count on him.”
People close to National Unity chairman Benny Gantz and his number two, Gadi Eisenkot, say they’re at the boiling point. Gantz has said more than once that he “can no longer bear the faces” of the other ministers, and that “every evening, he takes Pramin [anti-nausea medication] to get through another day.” Eisenkot is even less tolerant of the other ministers’ cynical politics.
On Sunday, Gantz and Eisenkot fought to have the war cabinet meet, rather than postponing it until after the Pesach holiday as Netanyahu had intended. As if the hostages and their families were also on a holiday at the Waldorf Astoria like Netanyahu. Granted, these meetings haven’t made any significant decisions for a long time, but they’re still the only venue for doing so.
The shocking hostage saga, the postwar scenario in the Gaza Strip, the timing of an attempt to salvage the north – all these are open, bleeding wounds. The National Unity Party’s hope of influencing Netanyahu to choose the path of sanity, normalization with Saudi Arabia and the establishment of an alternative to Gaza’s Hamas government is starting to sound suspiciously naive, almost detached from reality.
The government is signaling that after the Rafah operation, whose duration nobody knows, the army will deploy for a more substantial campaign up north to push Hezbollah away from the border and allow any brave gamblers to return to their bombed homes before the next school year opens. But given the achievements to date – in the diplomatic, military and intelligence spheres – skepticism about this scenario is warranted.
How is the public supposed to blindly grant a credit line for further adventures to the same government and army that presided over a terrible disaster and a failed war?
Hamas ‘serious’ about captives’ release but not without Gaza ceasefire
Hamas is stressing its four conditions even as 18 countries try to ramp up pressure on the group for a deal.
Palestinian group Hamas has said it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.
Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s political bureau, said that Hamas “is serious about releasing Israeli captives within the framework of an agreement” that also ensures the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
He told Al Jazeera Arabic in a televised interview on Thursday that Hamas will not accept a truce without a permanent ceasefire and a complete halt of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli bombardment has killed more than 34,000 people – mainly women and children – since the current conflict started in October.
An “unhindered return” of Palestinians across the besieged enclave to their homes, along with the reconstruction of Gaza and “an end to the crippling siege” imposed on it were among the four conditions that al-Hayya reiterated.
Hamas had submitted its response to a United States amendment on April 13 and is still waiting for a reply from Israel and the mediating parties, he said.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday that he saw fresh momentum in talks to end the war in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages.
“I believe that there is a renewed effort under way involving Qatar and Egypt as well as Israel to try to find a way forward,” Sullivan told MSNBC in an interview. “Do I think that there is new momentum, new life in these hostage talks? I believe there is.”
Talks on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have been in limbo with the two sides showing few signs that they are ready to compromise on their demands.
But international mediators – Qatar, the US and Egypt – have been engaged in intense behind-the-scenes talks to secure a deal.
Top Israeli officials have repeatedly called Hamas’s demands “delusional” and have said an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip would amount to losing the war.
Egyptian, Israeli and US officials reportedly held in-person and remote meetings on Wednesday that sought concessions to break the deadlock in the months-long negotiations.
On Friday, Egypt sent a delegation to Israel with the hope of brokering a ceasefire agreement, two officials told The Associated Press news agency.
Top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, was leading the team and planned to discuss a “new vision” for a prolonged ceasefire in the enclave, an Egyptian official said.
Friday’s talks were set to be initially focused on a limited exchange of captives for Palestinian prisoners and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions”, the unnamed official said.
Meanwhile, the US and 17 other countries issued an appeal for Hamas to release captives as a pathway to end the crisis in Gaza.
“We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now for over 200 days,” read the statement on Thursday by the leaders of Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
It said that the “deal on the table to release the hostages would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, that would facilitate a surge of additional necessary humanitarian assistance to be delivered throughout Gaza, and lead to the credible end of hostilities”.
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna pointed out that the statement appeared to be trying to step up pressure on Hamas amid ongoing attempts at negotiation.
“There’s no mention whatsoever of any concomitant release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel by the Israeli government, but this is stepping up pressure on Hamas, it would appear, as these negotiations grind forward,” he said.
Hamas responded to the letter on Friday, saying it regretted that the countries had not emphasised “the necessity of a permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.
The Palestinian group called on the US and the international community to apply pressure on Israel to end “the crime of genocide” being committed against Palestinians in Gaza.
The back-and-forth comes as Israel has significantly increased its military activities across the enclave and is proceeding with plans for a ground invasion of Rafah in the south, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter.
The humanitarian situation in Rafah – bordering Egypt – and across Gaza remains dire, with the United Nations and others repeatedly stressing the need for Israel to allow more aid in.
Eleven-year-old Husam is one of more than 600,000 children who have sought refuge in Rafah, which was designated a “safe zone” even as the Israeli military continues to pound it from the air in preparation for a ground assault.
“We’re afraid people will resort to killing each other for food,” he told Al Jazeera.
“A person’s psyche wears out with fear. It’s a slow death.”
Middle East Monitor – April 25, 2024
Israel council discusses avoiding ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, Halevi
The Israeli National Security Council (NSC) yesterday held a secret session during which it discussed the possibility that international arrest warrants could be issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Galant and Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi “in the coming days”.
According to Israel’s Channel 13, Israel’s National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi chaired the meeting, in which arrest warrants for other officials were also discussed. They decided to take a series of measures, including launching a diplomatic pressure campaign and activating Israel’s international tools to prevent the International Criminal Court (ICC) from issuing arrest warrants.
They outlined several immediate measures that Israel must take to confront this potential step, including launching a political campaign at the international level in an attempt to thwart any ICC action.
The “immediate measures” approved by the NSC include phone calls between Netanyahu and his counterparts around the world, putting pressure on the US administration and involving the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog, in these efforts.
“Based on the information and indicators available to senior officials in Israel, there is a possibility that the International Criminal Court in The Hague will issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi,” the report said.
According to Channel 13, Israeli officials predict that “the potential arrest warrants, if issued, are expected to target policy makers at the military and political levels [referring to high-ranking officials], and not junior officers.”
Channel 13 reported that Israel has already begun “immediate measures” that it decided to take in an attempt to prevent the issuance of arrest warrants. Yesterday, Netanyahu held telephone conversations with his counterparts in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Austria, urging them to exert political pressure on the court in favour of Israel.
The Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, and the Israeli ambassador to Washington also held talks with officials in President Joe Biden’s administration and members of Congress. In addition to this, the channel noted that there has been “enormous pressure on the American administration to intervene on behalf of Israel” in this issue.
High-ranking Israeli officials said that if implemented, this “brings to mind the measures taken against Russia and its President [Vladimir] Putin.”
The report stated that the Israeli Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs, or the State Security Cabinet, which is scheduled to meet today, will discuss this issue, including additional measures that could be taken in an attempt to block the possible action.
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