Six weeks away from the first-year anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed around 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, Egypt, Qatar, and the US face growing difficulties to get Hamas and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire. The three nations released a joint statement on 8 August pushing for the talks to take place on Thursday in Cairo.

According to Reuters, citing two senior sources, Iran is considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks, marking the first such involvement since the conflict in Gaza began. Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza, the sources said, would hold Iran back for direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

This week, under the new political/military leadership of Yehia Sinwar, Hamas said it has no plans to participate in talks given the Israeli government’s failure to engage seriously with a ceasefire agreement based on the proposal made by US President Joe Biden earlier in the summer.

In the first week of June, Biden proposed a three-stage ceasefire process that would allow for the exchange of hostages, sustained calm in Gaza and southern Israel, and reconstruction of Gaza under a new security system. While Hamas engaged positively with the proposal, Netanyahu stalled despite pressure from the families of Israeli hostages to agree to the deal.

Subsequent American pressure, including that applied by Biden during Netanyahu’s August visit to Washington, failed to get the Israeli prime minister to budge. Instead, he has increased Israeli attacks on Gaza. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Israel raided a school shelter in south Gaza, killing 100 Palestinians and wounding many. The massacre was condemned by the UN secretary-general and international humanitarian and aid organisations.

According to an Egyptian source close to the mediating team, Hamas has decided to deny Netanyahu the opportunity to continue the war while claiming he is negotiating a ceasefire. “Netanyahu does not want to end the war. He wants to keep the war going, at least until the American elections,” said the source.

Netanyahu is resisting pressure from Biden, other world leaders, and his own defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who this week criticised Netanyahu for claiming victory over Hamas while failing to secure the release of Israeli hostages. On Monday, a spokesman for Hamas acknowledged the death of an Israeli hostage who was killed in the raid that Israel launched on Sunday.

According to the source close to the mediation, Netanyahu “wants to use the remaining months leading to US presidential elections to increase the onslaught on Gaza and hit as many targets as possible, including eliminating Sinwar.”

Short of a sustainable ceasefire, argued the source, “Hamas has nothing to win or lose.”

“The damage is already done. Gaza is largely destroyed, and Hamas so weakened militarily and politically that it cannot take back control of the Strip.”

He added that with Sinwar now leading Hamas, the movement is likely to adopt a harder line than under Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated by Israel while in Tehran two weeks ago.

Nor is it likely that the expected visit of US Secretary-of-State Antony Blinken to the region will change the positions of either Israel of Hamas. After eight visits to the region by Blinken and an equal number by CIA Chief William Burns, nothing of any substance has been achieved

Blinken was expected to arrive in the Middle East for ceasefire talks in Egypt, Qatar, and Israel in a new bid to pave the way to a ceasefire, given the threat of military action from Iran and Hizbullah in Lebanon to avenge the killing of Haniyeh and of Fouad Shukr, the Hizbullah leader eliminated by Israel in Lebanon days before Haniyeh’s assassination.

According to Cairo-based foreign diplomats, in recent weeks the US has pressed Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey to use their political capital with Hamas to get it to show more flexibility.

“The three countries did pressure Hamas. The trouble is that every time Hamas agrees to something, Netanyahu returns with more demands,” said one source.

Late last week, Netanyahu’s office said he had agreed to send a delegation to Egypt on 15 August to discuss the next round of negotiations. The Israeli press, however, was sceptical that the visit would result in a breakthrough, especially if Netanyahu intends to put a new list of demands on the table.

During the last round of talks, informed sources say Netanyahu refused to commit to a long-term, uninterrupted ceasefire and insisted that remaining Israeli hostages be handed over en masse before Israel suspended hostilities or allowed humanitarian aid to enter the devastated Strip. The proposal was rejected outright by Hamas, which told mediators that it could not hand over hostages while Palestinians were being starved and bombarded by the Israeli military.

“This was before the latest massacre on Sunday and before Sinwar took over,” said the Egyptian source close to the negotiations. And today, he added, Hamas’ calculations are a lot more complex.

Hamas, he argued, needs to decide whether it will put aside politics in favour of militant resistance. It needs to assess its remaining military capabilities, and the political support it can expect from regional players.

“Even if Qatar and Turkey decided to be less supportive, temporarily, to accommodate the US, Iran would be willing to support Hamas.”

And Hamas still needs to formulate its position vis-à-vis the day after the war. Before his assassination, Haniyeh was involved in talks with both Egypt and Qatar which in turn coordinated with the US and Israel over the management of Gaza by a technocrat government that could be condoned by Hamas. The new government was supposed to agree with Egypt, the UN, the EU, and the US on the management of the Rafah Crossing and the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid. Today, the source said, it is unclear whether Sinwar will sign up to what Haniyeh had in principle agreed.

As the war in Gaza continues, and with the expectation of Iranian and Hizbullah retaliatory attacks against Israel, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is deteriorating fast. According to a humanitarian situation report issued on 12 August by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 84 per cent of Gaza’s two million plus people have been placed under evacuation orders. The report said that the “cumulative impact of access constraints is perpetuating a continued cycle of deprivation and distress among affected people… Since 1 August, about a third of aid missions within Gaza were denied access by Israeli authorities.”

In a press briefing earlier this month, Salim Oweis, UNICEF communications officer, said that the “unrelenting war inflicts horrors on thousands of children, keeping far too many separated from their loved ones.”

 

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 15 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly