US says Gaza truce deal ‘possible’ this week as Israel ramps up attacks | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The United States has announced that a Gaza ceasefire deal could be reached as early as this week, even as the Israeli military continues to strike the Palestinian enclave with deadly effect.
On Monday, outgoing US President Joe Biden said a ceasefire was within reach after more than a year of carnage.
“In the war between Israel and Hamas, we are on the verge of the proposal that I detailed months ago finally coming to life,” Biden said in a foreign policy speech.
“I learned in my years of public service to never, never, never give up,” he added. “We’re pushing hard to shut this down.”
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also said during a news conference earlier in the day that a deal could be possible within days.
However, he added, such an agreement is not guaranteed.
“We are close to an agreement and we can achieve it this week. I’m not making any promises or predictions, but it’s there for the taking, and we can work to make it happen,” Sullivan said.
He also confirmed that Biden recently spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about the talks.
The outgoing American president will soon talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
“We are now at a critical point in negotiations for a hostage deal and a Gaza ceasefire,” Sullivan said.
US-brokered ceasefire talks with Qatar and Egypt are at an advanced stage in Doha, where top Israeli negotiators such as the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies are expected to stay for another day.
Hamas also said the talks had made some progress on some of the contentious issues that have been discussed many times during the 15-month war that has killed more than 46,500 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Negotiations on some key issues have progressed and we are working to conclude what remains soon,” a Palestinian group official told Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.
Officials said the final draft of the deal, which includes an exchange of Gaza prisoners for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, was presented to all parties after the latest talks in the Qatari capital yielded results.
Netanyahu and Biden held a telephone conversation on Sunday, discussing the latest developments, with Biden again saying now is the time for a deal.
Newly elected US President Donald Trump and his top officials have repeatedly threatened that there will be “hell to pay” if the prisoners are not released or there is no deal by the time Trump takes office January 20.
“It’s very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there will be hell to pay is part of the reason why we’ve made progress in getting some of the hostages out,” said Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Netanyahu is also facing internal pressure from far-right members of his ruling coalition, who have threatened to walk out if a deal is reached – although Netanyahu has stressed that Israel will maintain military control of Gaza regardless of any deal.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads one of the hard-line ultra-nationalist religious parties in the country’s ruling coalition, said the fact that the deal was taking shape in Qatar was a “national security disaster”.
Angry family members of Israelis detained in Gaza stormed into a committee room in Israel’s parliament on Monday to accuse Smotrich of abandoning their loved ones and said “the conditions are ripe for a deal.”
Israel intensifies attacks amid negotiations
The Israeli military has been launching relentless waves of heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling across the Gaza Strip as talks on a potential deal heated up.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Monday that at least 45 Palestinians had been killed in the past day as a result of Israeli attacks across the enclave.
Many of the attacks were aimed at Gaza City in northern Gaza, where more than 100 days of the Israeli siege at least 5,000 people were killed or missing, according to local authorities.
The siege also destroyed hospitals and other critical infrastructure, displaced thousands of people and saw many Palestinians captured by the Israeli military.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Monday, Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud said many of the drone strikes had taken place since the early hours of the morning.
“This is happening in areas where the vast majority of displaced people have taken refuge, areas that are densely populated,” he said.
The Israeli army said five of its soldiers were killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, while eight others were wounded.
The deaths bring the Israeli military’s losses in the war against Gaza to 408 as of October 27, 2023.
Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli justice minister who initiated the Oslo peace accords in the early 1990s, told Al Jazeera that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was “a long time coming”.
“This is the main question: How much [captives and prisoners] will be released? After they agree on that and [timing] layoffs, then an agreement is possible,” he said.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire as the Israeli army continues to block most aid and starve the population, about half of whom are children.
