FLASH FIRE – A woman holds a child surrounded by the rubble of destroyed buildings during Israeli shelling in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on June 23, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Iyad Baba | AFP | Getty Images
Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha broke down on Friday with negotiators set to meet again next week to seek a deal to end fighting between Israel and Hamas and free the remaining hostages, with US President Joe Biden saying “we're not there yet”.
In a joint statement, the United States, Qatar and Egypt said Washington had presented a new proposal that builds on points of agreement reached over the past week, bridging gaps in a way that could allow for the agreement’s rapid implementation. They added that mediators would continue to work on the proposal.
“The way is now paved to achieve this outcome, save lives, provide relief to the people of Gaza, and calm regional tensions,” they said in the statement.
Israel and mediators on Thursday began the latest round of months-long talks aimed at ending a war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. The Palestinian militant group Hamas was not directly involved in the talks but was kept informed.
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq told Reuters that Israel “did not abide by what was agreed upon” in previous talks, citing what the mediators had told them.
Biden says deal 'much closer'
In Washington, Biden said a deal was “much closer” than it had been before the talks began. A senior administration official said the latest negotiations had been the most productive in months, and negotiators would resume meetings next week in Cairo in hopes of concluding them.
“There was a consensus among all the participants over the last 48 hours that there is a new spirit here to push it through,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “The Israeli team that was here has been empowered… We have made a lot of progress on a number of issues that we have been working on,” the official added.
Biden said in a statement that he had directed his negotiating team to present the comprehensive proposal presented on Friday, which he said provides the basis for a final agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
The US president said he had spoken with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who he said had expressed strong support for the US proposal. He added that teams would remain on the ground to continue technical work, and that senior officials would meet in Cairo “before the end of the week.”
Biden added that he would send US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel to reaffirm the US commitment to Israel and “to emphasize that with a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage release now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.”
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) during a trilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the East Room of the White House on April 11, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnick | Getty Images
On Friday evening, Biden told reporters he was optimistic about the prospects for a ceasefire, but cautioned that it was “far from over.” Asked when a ceasefire would begin if a deal were reached, Biden said: “That remains to be seen.” Israel insists that peace is only possible if Hamas is destroyed, while Hamas has said it will only accept a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary one.
Other difficulties include the sequence of deals, the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released alongside Israeli hostages, control of Gaza's border with Egypt, and freedom of movement for Palestinians within Gaza.
An Israeli official said his delegation in Doha would return home and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to meet Blinken on Monday. On Friday, Israeli forces struck targets across the small, densely populated Gaza Strip and issued new orders for people to leave areas it had previously designated as safe zones for civilians, saying Hamas had used them to fire mortars and rockets into Israel.
As hundreds of families fled with their belongings, the United Nations called for a week-long ceasefire in the polio vaccination campaign as the disease spreads among the displaced. The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement that it had discovered the first confirmed case of polio in the Gaza Strip.
The latest flare-up in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. The subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities.
It displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which Israel denies. Israel says it killed 17,000 Hamas fighters, adding that the group used civilians as human shields.
Regional concerns
Defense officials said the Israeli delegation included intelligence chief David Barnea, internal security chief Ronen Bar and the head of the military’s hostage department, Nitzan Alon. The White House sent CIA Director Bill Burns and U.S. envoy to the Middle East Brett McGurk. Also in attendance were Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.
Washington hopes the Gaza ceasefire will defuse the threat of a wider war. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
The United States has sent warships, submarines and warplanes to the region to defend Israel and deter potential attackers. Asked on Friday whether Iran would continue to refrain from retaliating against Israel now that the ceasefire talks have been extended, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said: “We hope so.”
The senior Biden administration official said that Washington had warned Tehran against launching a major missile attack against Israel, “because the consequences could be very catastrophic, especially for Iran.”
