Intense negotiations were underway as the truce in the war between Israel and Gaza entered its final day.
Statements from Israel, Hamas, the United States and others, issued overnight and into the morning, underscored the urgency of extending the four-day pause in the war, which is scheduled to end Monday.
Diplomatic efforts continue as the two sides prepare a fourth prisoner exchange. Israel said it was prepared to suspend its offensive against the enclave for a day in exchange for the release of 10 additional captives, although it also reiterated its intention to continue fighting until “victory.”
US President Joe Biden said on Sunday he hoped the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas could continue as long as the captives were freed. The Palestinian group released 17 more people yesterday, including a four-year-old Israeli-American girl.
Extending the truce “is my goal, it’s our goal, to maintain this pause beyond tomorrow so that we can continue to see more hostages released and bring more humanitarian aid to those in need in Gaza “Biden said at a press conference.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to visit Israel on Monday, before heading to Brussels to attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, where the crisis in Gaza is expected to be discussed on the sidelines.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he had spoken to Biden about releasing the captives. However, he added that he also told the US leader that when the truce ended, Israel would return in force to achieve its goals of eliminating Hamas and freeing all prisoners.
Netanyahu on Sunday became the first Israeli leader since 2005 to appear in Gaza. Standing on a fatigue tank, he reiterated the war’s objectives to soldiers, but also raised the possibility of extending the truce.
Hamas has said it wants to extend the pause in fighting if serious efforts are made to increase the number of Palestinian detainees released by Israel.
A spokesperson said the group that governs Gaza would like fighting to be suspended “as long as prisoners continue to come out.”
The Palestinian Authority said Monday afternoon that Qatar, Egypt, the United States, the EU and Spain were working to extend the deal.
Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said the current truce could be extended by “one, two, three days”, but added that no one knows exactly for how long.
Four rounds of exchanges
Thirty-nine teenage Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel on Sunday, bringing the total to 117 since the start of the truce.
Hamas said it handed over 13 Israelis, three Thais and one Russian national during the fourth phase of truce exchanges between the two sides. The Palestinian group released a total of 58 captives, including 39 to Israel.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed on Sunday that it had successfully transferred the last group from Gaza.
Biden said he believed “all actors in the region are looking for a way to end this situation so that the hostages are all released and…Hamas is no longer in complete control of Gaza.”
He also expressed joy over the release of four-year-old American-Israeli captive Abigail Edan.
The four-day truce agreed to last week is the first break in fighting in seven weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which Israel says killed 1,200 people and returned about 240 hostages to Gaza.
In response to this attack, Israel bombed the enclave and launched a ground offensive into the enclave. Some 14,800 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
“An extension is unlikely”
Despite diplomatic efforts, some doubts remain in the region about the possibility of an extension of the truce.
This is unlikely to happen, given the messages coming from the Israeli side, said Ibrahim Abusharif of Northwestern University in Qatar.
“I also think that a ceasefire is not the same as extinguishing the initial spark – the initial point of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“If they just extend the truce for a few days and resume the carnage, that doesn’t seem like an effective way forward. This is not moving forward at all. »
Israeli Army Radio said Monday that the Tel Aviv government was awaiting Hamas’ response on extending the truce for another day in exchange for the release of 10 detainees.
Blinken spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry on Sunday to discuss obstacles threatening the truce between Israel and Hamas and ways to achieve a comprehensive ceasefire, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
Separately, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will travel to New York this week to hold a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas conflict, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry announced.
The EU’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, also joined efforts to maintain the truce.
“The pause must be extended to make it sustainable while working towards a political solution,” he said Monday at the start of a meeting of the intergovernmental organization Union for the Mediterranean, from which Israel was absent.
The European official called for a “political solution which should allow us to break the cycle of violence once and for all”.
“Nothing can justify the indiscriminate brutality perpetrated by Hamas against civilians” on October 7, he said. “But one horror cannot justify another horror.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said an extension of the truce “would provide much-needed aid to the people of Gaza and free more hostages.”
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, he also said Iran should rein in its “proxies” in what was likely a reference to the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
