CIA Director William Burns said the United States is working with Qatar and Egypt on a new, more detailed proposal for a prisoner exchange and ceasefire in Gaza, which he said will be presented to Hamas and Israel in the coming days.
Burns expressed hope that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would agree to reach an agreement on prisoners and a ceasefire.
He explained – in statements he made during a forum organized by the Financial Times newspaper in London today, Saturday – that “there is concern among the security agencies we deal with, including the Israeli ones, about the possibility of the conflict expanding.”
The US official stressed that Washington will continue to work with other mediators to reach a ceasefire in Gaza because there is no alternative to that, according to his expression.
He said that reaching a deal “depends on the extent of the political will of the leaders of both parties,” adding that “any country that has influence over Hamas must push it to accept a ceasefire agreement and end the suffering in Gaza,” according to his expression.
British Intelligence Director: Hamas is a movement and an idea and it can only be killed by a better idea#Gaza_War pic.twitter.com/hDOQj8mcC6
— Tel Aviv Tribune Channel (@AJArabic) September 7, 2024
“Hamas is an idea”
In the same context, the head of the British Foreign Intelligence Service (MI6), Richard Moore, said that the ceasefire in Gaza is related to the political will of both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
Moore told the Financial Times during the same forum that Hamas’s military capabilities had deteriorated severely, but he stressed that they had not been eliminated.
“Hamas is a movement and an idea, and you can only kill it with a better idea, and the Palestinians need a better alternative,” he said.
The British official believed that stopping the fighting in Gaza would provide solutions to the issues of the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon, and navigation in the Red Sea.
New demonstrations
On the other hand, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities are scheduled to witness new demonstrations on Saturday evening, demanding a prisoner exchange deal.
The mother of one of the Israeli prisoners in Gaza said – in a video message – that Netanyahu decided to abandon the kidnapped and bury her son in the tunnels, according to her expression.
The prisoner’s mother called for supporting the families of the prisoners in the demonstrations that she said would start this evening in Tel Aviv.
The ceasefire negotiations in Gaza have reached a critical stage, due to Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing the war on the Strip, and not withdrawing from the Philadelphi (Salah al-Din) axis in the south of the Strip, while Hamas insists on ending the war, returning the displaced, and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
