Spy Chief in Talks to Break Gaza Deadlock
Jerusalem: Israel’s spy chief held talks with Qatari mediators in the latest effort for a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, almost nine months into the Israel-Hamas war.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations said Mossad chief David Barnea and his delegation had left Doha straight after the meetings on the latest Hamas ideas for an agreement.
No public statement was issued after the talks.
The US, which has worked alongside Qatar and Egypt in trying to broker a deal, had talked up the significance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to send a delegation to Qatar.
The US believes Israel and Hamas have a “pretty significant opening” to reach an agreement, a senior official said.
US President Joe Biden announced a pathway to a truce deal in May that he said had been proposed by Israel. It included an initial six-week truce, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza population centres and the freeing of hostages by Palestinian militants.
Talks subsequently stalled but the US official said the new proposal from Hamas “moves the process forward and may provide the basis for closing the deal,” though “significant work” remained.
Yesterday, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the group expected a swift Israeli response – “likely today or tomorrow morning” – to its new “ideas”.
He blamed Israel for the deadlock since Mr Biden’s announcement. Mr Hamdan said the ideas had been “conveyed by the mediators to the American side, which welcomed them and passed them on to the Israeli side. Now the ball is in the Israeli court”.
Mr Hamdan said the Doha talks “will be a test for the US administration to see if it is willing to pressure the Zionist entity to accept these proposed ideas”.
There has been no truce in the war since a one-week pause in November saw 80 Israeli hostages freed in return for 240 Palestinians. The main stumbling block to a truce deal has been Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the fighting, which Mr Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners strongly reject.
The head of the World Health Organisation warned that “further disruption to health services is imminent in Gaza due to a severe lack of fuel”. Only 90,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza on Wednesday, but the health sector alone needs 80,000 litres each day.
The WHO and its partners in Gaza were having “to make impossible choices” as a result, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Since the war began, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army in support of its Palestinian ally.
The exchanges have intensified over the past month after Israel killed senior Hezbollah commanders.
Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and drones at army positions in northern Israel and the Golan Heights in its latest round of reprisals on Thursday. A military source said the rocket fire killed a soldier in northern Israel.
Article link: https://todayspaper.couriermail.com.au/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=71a583bf-a846-4d29-8903-e0ff28fa4b9e&share=trueArticle source: Courier-Mail | 7 July 2024
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