The mediators’ proposal is on the table of the parties and is continuing to be negotiated. But the priorities of Hamas and Israel for concluding the agreement are currently opposite. This is why the US is strengthening its pressure, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken arriving in Israel on Saturday for his sixth visit since the start of the war.
Hamas has announced that it has received the draft agreement and that one of its delegations will be in Paris from tomorrow to discuss it. But its leader Ismail Haniyeh has outlined the framework within which the faction’s response will move. “The priority – he explained – is to stop the aggression in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Strip. We are open to discussing any serious and practical initiative or idea”, provided that it leads to a “complete cessation” of the war .
An agreement, Haniyeh continued, which guarantees the return home of people “forced to be displaced by the occupation, the lifting of the siege and the implementation of a serious prisoner exchange process”. The head of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, which is holding Israeli hostages, is on the same wavelength. The organization, Ziad al-Nakhala underlined, will not negotiate agreements on the abductees unless there is a “comprehensive ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza”.
According to some rumors leaked by Hamas, the draft agreement includes three phases with the release of Palestinian hostages and detainees. In the first phase, Israeli women, children and elderly people would be freed; in the second all the soldiers of the Jewish State; in the third there would be the restitution of the corpses. The parties would put an end to the war (Hamas has said it is willing to do so “in stages”) over the course of the three phases. The same source explained that the number of Palestinian prisoners that Israel should release has not yet been decided. Arab sources speak of the beginning of the month of Ramadan, March 11, as a possible date for the end of the fighting.
“We will not withdraw the army from Gaza and we will not free thousands of Palestinian prisoners, none of this will happen”, however, warned Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu after the warning from the radical right present in his government. An agreement with Hamas would be “irresponsible”, thundered the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who threatened “the split of the government”.
On the 116th day of the war, the IDF is increasingly striking in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Strip: in particular, the Hamas positions were hit, from which a volley of rockets was fired towards Tel Aviv yesterday. The army then announced that the systematic flooding of Hamas tunnels has already begun. “We have reached – he explained – the operational capacity that we considered necessary. The channeling of the water already takes place in the sites deemed suitable”. In Gaza, the Khan Yunis Red Crescent reported that Israeli soldiers “stormed the front courtyard of the organization’s building and the Al-Amal hospital” in the city. The deaths in the Strip – according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and militiamen – have reached 26,751, with 65,636 injured.
For further information ANSA Agency Israeli blitz in a hospital in Jenin. Soldiers disguised as doctors and women – News – Ansa.it Three killed in action. For the PNA they are ‘three martyrs’, for Israel they were ‘three terrorists’ of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (ANSA)
Video Disguised as doctors, Israeli soldiers raid the Jenin hospital
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