Having killed close to 24,000 Palestinians in a little over 100 days, Israel this week vowed to continue the war it started on 7 October and has since expanded from the north to the middle and south of the Gaza Strip.
However, in parallel it has been sending security teams to Egypt to negotiate a possible new ceasefire and prisoner-swap deal in Gaza.
The latest Israeli delegation was in Cairo on Saturday, less than 48 hours before the Palestinian group Hamas announced that the fate of many of the Israeli hostages that were taken on 7 October during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation in southern Israel was at risk owing to continuing Israeli strikes on Gaza that have already killed two hostages.
The statement came on the 101st day of the Israeli war on Gaza and less than 24 hours after a gathering had been held by families and friends of the Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv to demand the release of their relatives.
Around 140 Israeli hostages are being held by Hamas, according to figures provided by the Israeli press. These have been confirmed by an Egyptian source privy to the mediation efforts Egypt has been working on for the past few weeks in an attempt to reach a new ceasefire and possibly a longer and more sustainable one than the one secured in November.
The source said it was unlikely that the current mediation process would be able to secure the release of every Israeli hostage given the failure of the Israeli government to agree to the demands put forward by Hamas with regard to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the strikes Israel is carrying out against Gaza, including on zones allocated as safe havens.
“But we might get a deal that would secure the release of some of them,” he said. He declined to specify numbers, saying that “things are changing with the situation on the ground.”
According to the source, reaching a ceasefire, even if a shorter one than wanted, was becoming a pressing target. There was the devastating humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza and the lack of medical and other supplies.
“Under a ceasefire, Israel would agree to the entrance of more relief material and medical supplies to Gaza,” he said, adding that there was also hope that a ceasefire, even if short, could allow the mediators to move towards a more permanent ceasefire to avert “a disturbing regional spill-over” of the Gaza conflict.
In statements issued by the Office of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on Sunday, following his talks with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the president called for a prompt end to the war for the sake of regional security.
Worries over the spill-over effects of the Israeli war on Gaza have been a key issue on the agenda of diplomatic and security talks for over a week. According to the same source, they were also on the agenda of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his regional tour that ended last Thursday in Cairo with a meeting with President Al-Sisi.
The source said that Blinken’s “security concerns” were essentially focused on two points. The first, he explained, had to do with the attacks conducted by Iran-supported militant groups in the region against US and Israeli targets. The second regarded the Israeli wish list for security measures after the war comes to an end.
“Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have been increasing their attacks on US targets, and the US, which used to retaliate against pro-Iranian targets in Syria, has changed tactics and attacked Iranian targets in Iraq,” said Safinaz Mohamed, a regional security expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
“This is a shift, and it is this that prompted the Iraqi government to demand an end to the US presence in Iraq,” she said.
According to Mohamed, there have also been other worrying shifts. The most worrying, she argued, had to do with the sequel of the Houthi attacks on Israeli and US vessels in the Red Sea that prompted US-UK strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
On Monday, despite threats of renewed strikes by UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, the pro-Iranian Yemeni group attacked a US-owned container ship in the Red Sea.
“I don’t think the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea will come to an end with the US-UK strikes. They could weaken the capacity of the Houthis to attack, but it is unlikely that they will completely eliminate these attacks,” Mohamed said.
She said that other than Iraq and the Red Sea there were also two other fronts that have seen shifts as a result of the Israeli war on Gaza. “South Lebanon on the northern border with Israel is one,” she said.
Despite earlier threats by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, the pro-Iranian Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah has not engaged in an intensive and large-scale confrontation with Israel. However, Mohamed said that this did not change the fact that there has been a qualitative shift in the confrontation across the Lebanese-Israeli border that indicates “possible escalation”.
“We have to take into consideration the fact that phase three of the Israeli war on Gaza includes hitting targets inside and outside Gaza, especially with a view to the elimination of the leaders of the resistance movements,” Mohamed said.
She referred to Israel’s elimination of Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri in a drone attack in Beirut and its elimination of Hizbullah’s Wassim Al-Tawil. “Clearly, the Israeli attack and elimination of a Hamas leader inside Lebanon is a shift that needs to be recognised,” she said.
Hizbullah attacks against targets inside Israel have also become more frequent and more daring. “Again, there is a shift on this front that indicates possible escalation,” Mohamed said.
She noted that the recent killings had prompted the Lebanese government to call for security parameters to be observed on the Lebanese-Israeli border for fear of an uncontained situation. “The Lebanese government is working to get Hizbullah to agree to this proposal,” she said, adding that the US is also trying to get Israel to agree to a code of conduct on the border with Lebanon.
Mohamed said that it would be wrong to underestimate the possibility of the Gaza war spilling over onto the West Bank, especially in view of Israeli attacks there. “There are already indications that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, groups associated with the Palestine Liberation Organisation are considering a resistance path in the West Bank,” she said.
Mohamed agreed that it was an open question whether this would start a new Intifada, or uprising, in the West Bank. However, she said that if this happened, it would come with worrying consequences for Jordan.
Both Jordan and Egypt, she added, are worried about the forced transfer of Palestinians to both countries as a result of the war. Both countries have peace treaties with Israel, and both are working to promote containment.
Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah received President Al-Sisi and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for talks on the prospects of containing the conflict. According to the Egyptian source, the meeting focused on Palestinian plans for the post-war management of governance and security in Gaza.
The source said that the core of the plans was to strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) and to bring it back to Gaza after 17 years of absence due to its conflict with Hamas without at the same time excluding Hamas from playing a continuing role in the Strip.
However, the source said that the Israeli prime minister was not willing to entertain such plans because he is not convinced that the PA can control Gaza.
This week, a defiant but clearly shaken Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli war on Gaza will not end before Israel’s security goals have been reached, not just for the war but also for the post-war set up.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 January, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: