Egypt continues its efforts to reactivate the armistice agreement in coordination with Qatar and America, while the American website Axios quoted two informed sources that the new Israeli proposal included readiness to discuss the demand of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) for sustainable calm in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that Tel Aviv handed over to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators its proposal to renew prisoner exchange negotiations and a ceasefire in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the Egyptian Cairo News Channel quoted a senior official as saying that an Egyptian security delegation is intensifying its efforts “to reactivate the truce and prisoner exchange agreement in coordination with Qatar and the United States.”
The source confirmed that Cairo will only deal with the Palestinian and international parties at the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip, and will not adopt coordination with the Israeli side.
He also pointed out that Egypt “informed all concerned parties that Israel’s insistence on committing massacres and escalation in the Palestinian Rafah weakens the negotiation paths and leads to dire consequences.”
Israel submits its proposal
In the same context; The American website Axios said that Israel delivered to Qatar, Egypt and the United States yesterday, Monday, an officially updated written proposal for a possible agreement to release detainees in Gaza that could lead to a temporary ceasefire, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.
Axios quoted one of these two experts as saying that the written proposal includes good details regarding the general principles presented by Mossad Director David Barnea during the meeting held in Paris last Friday.
The source said that the updated Israeli proposal includes a “willingness to be flexible” regarding the number of living detainees who will be released in the first humanitarian phase of the deal, as well as a willingness to discuss Hamas’ demand for “sustainable calm” in the Gaza Strip.
A source familiar with the negotiations said, “There is a new initiative and it is serious.”
For its part, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority said on Tuesday that Tel Aviv had handed over to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators its proposal to renew prisoner exchange negotiations with Hamas and a ceasefire in Gaza.
The authority said that the talks are expected to resume next week in the Qatari capital, Doha.
The Commission quoted unnamed foreign parties participating in the negotiations as saying that the expansion of Israeli military activities in Rafah (south of the Gaza Strip) will make the talks difficult.
Yesterday, Monday, Hamas leader Osama Hamdan denied that his movement had received any confirmation from the mediators regarding Israel’s claim that it had drafted a new prisoner exchange deal, stressing that the issue could not be addressed before a comprehensive cessation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip.
With the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the United States, Hamas and Israel have been conducting faltering indirect negotiations for months to reach an agreement to exchange prisoners and stop the war on Gaza that broke out on October 7, 2023.
Over two days, Cairo hosted the last negotiating round, before the delegations of Hamas and Israel left the Egyptian capital on May 9 without announcing that an agreement had been reached, despite the movement’s acceptance at the time of a proposal presented by the mediators, but Israel rejected it after Hamas approved it.
Efforts to reach the latest deal were hampered after Israel rejected it, claiming that it did not meet its conditions, and began a military operation on the city of Rafah on May 6, then took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing the next day.
The Israeli aggression on Gaza left more than 117,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
Israel continues this war, ignoring a Security Council resolution demanding that it stop the fighting immediately, and orders from the Court of Justice demanding that it stop its attack on Rafah, take immediate measures to prevent acts of genocide, and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Source : Tel Aviv Tribune + Anatolia + Israeli press + Egyptian press