The United States will work with mediating countries to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, adding that not all of Hamas’ demands were met. “feasible”.
The day before, Hamas gave a response to mediators from Qatar and Egypt to a ceasefire plan announced on May 31 by Joe Biden, proposed according to him by Israel.
Hamas called for a “total cessation of aggression” in Gaza and proposed “amendments” to the proposal announced by the US president, “including a timetable for a permanent ceasefire and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip,” said a source familiar with the discussions.
On a consultation visit with Qatar on Hamas’ response, Mr. Blinken said the Palestinian Islamist movement, at war for more than eight months against Israel in the Gaza Strip, could have given a “clear and simple yes.”
Among Hamas’ demands, “some changes are achievable, others are not,” Blinken said.
“I think this gap can be bridged,” added the American official.
“This does not mean that it will be filled, because, in the end, it is Hamas which will have to decide,” he also insisted. “The longer this goes on, the more people will suffer, and it is time to stop the bargaining,” he said.
The Islamist movement Hamas announced on Tuesday that it had given its response, without revealing its content, to mediators from Qatar and Egypt, calling for a “total cessation of aggression” in Gaza.
This three-phase plan was announced on May 31 by US President Joe Biden, who then presented it as an Israeli proposal.
But Israel has not officially announced its position and is relentlessly continuing its offensive, launched on October 7 on the Gaza Strip in response to the bloody attack carried out by Hamas on its soil.
On Wednesday, a UN commission of inquiry found that Israel was responsible for “crimes against humanity”, including “extermination”, in the Gaza Strip, where the war has left tens of thousands dead .
This commission also accused the Israeli authorities and seven Palestinian armed groups, including the armed wing of Hamas, of war crimes.
The Israeli embassy in Geneva accused the commission of “systematic discrimination” against it.
The war in Gaza has also led to an outbreak of violence in the occupied West Bank, where six Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, and on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire are daily between the Israeli army and Hezbollah Lebanese, ally of Hamas.
The army said about 160 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday morning, after an Israeli strike killed a top Hezbollah commander the day before in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Islamist movement claimed responsibility for the firing of several “dozens of Katyushas” as well as guided missiles.
Meanwhile, bombings targeted the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israel. In the north, seven people were killed in eastern Gaza City, according to a doctor.
Several strikes targeted the center of the territory, according to an AFP correspondent.
In Rafah, in the south, a child was killed in the bombing of a house, said a doctor at Nasser Hospital. Witnesses reported artillery fire in the eastern part of the town of Khan Younes.
The army announced that it was continuing its ground operations in the central Gaza Strip and having “eliminated numerous terrorist cells in close combat” on Tuesday in Rafah.
The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data .
Of 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still held hostage in Gaza, of whom 41 are dead, according to the Israeli army.
In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip which has so far left 37,164 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
Mr Blinken, who was visiting Israel on Tuesday, had warned that if Hamas did not accept the proposal currently on the table, failure would “clearly” be its responsibility.
Indirect negotiations have so far come up against contradictory demands from both camps.
Israel refuses to end the war until Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, is eliminated.
The Islamist movement is demanding in particular a definitive ceasefire and a total withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’ response sent to mediators contains “amendments” to the proposal announced by Joe Biden, “including a timetable for a permanent ceasefire and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip”, according to a close source discussions.
The United States indicated that it was “considering” this response. “I am not going to provide any context or details on the response that has just come in and which our team is currently evaluating, as are our friends in Qatar and Egypt,” said a spokesperson for the White House, John Kirby.
Israeli media and the American website Axios claimed that Hamas had rejected the plan.
A Hamas leader, Izzat al-Rishq, however, said the response was both “responsible, serious and positive” and “opened the way to an agreement.”
“Israeli media allegations about Hamas’ response demonstrate attempts to shield Israel from the obligations of the agreement,” he wrote, implying that these press indications allowed Israel to continue its strikes.
Antony Blinken also stressed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “reaffirmed his commitment” to a ceasefire during an interview on Monday.
The plan provides, in a first phase, a six-week ceasefire accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza, the release of certain hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
“The horror must end,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an international conference in Jordan devoted to humanitarian aid for Gaza on Tuesday.
The UN is concerned about the risk of famine in the territory, where at least 1.7 million people, out of an estimated 2.4 million inhabitants, have been repeatedly displaced by war.
