The office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to send a negotiation team to Qatar for talks on a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza while Israeli forces continued to bomb the Palestinian enclave, killing at least 78 people in the last 24 hours.
The Netanyahu office said that the team would go to the Qatari capital, Doha, on Sunday, after the Israeli chief asked the negotiators “to accept the invitation for tight talks”.
But the press release indicates that “the changes of Hamas ask to bring to the Qatari proposal which was delivered to us last night and is unacceptable for Israel”.
He did not explain the requested changes.
The announcement reached after Hamas said on Friday that he had provided a “positive” response to an artisanal proposal from the United States which would imply a 60-day truce in Gaza, renewing hopes of a possible end to the deadly assault of Israel against the Palestinian enclave.
At least 57,338 Palestinians were killed in the War of Israel against Gaza, which began in October 2023, while at least 135,957 others were injured. Israeli attacks have been to waste Gaza, stimulating a disastrous humanitarian crisis and left the territory on the verge of famine.
Hamas insisted that any cease-fire agreement must include guarantees that Israel will permanently put an end to its war against Gaza.
The Palestinian group said on Friday that it was “fully prepared, with the seriousness, to immediately seize a new series of negotiations on the implementation mechanism” of the last cease-fire frame.
Hamas requests
Hamdah Salhut of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Amman to Jordan, explained that Hamas had made requests for three basic amendments to the proposal.
“They wanted the talks to end the war will continue if there was a break in the fighting, if the 60 days were over,” she said.
The Palestinian group also wants humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza through international mechanisms led by the United Nations instead of the Gaza Humaninian Foundation (GHF) supported by the United States and Israeli.
More than 700 Palestinians were killed and thousands of people injured while asking for help on the GHF sites since the Foundation began to operate in the band at the end of May.
“The third (request) concerned where Israeli forces could be in the Gaza Strip as part of this agreement,” added Salhut.
The announcement of the Netanyahu office came while families and supporters of Israeli captives gathered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, demanding an agreement to obtain the return of their loved ones. About fifty of the 200 people caught in captivity during the attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023 remain in Gaza. Israel believes that 27 of them died.
Families accused Netanyahu, who is tried on corruption accusations, of blocking attempts to conclude an agreement for his personal gain.
Salhut explained that the families of captives accused the Israeli Prime Minister of “prioritizing politics” on the lives of their loved ones.
“Her current right -wing allies – the reason for which Netanyahu is in power – does not want an agreement,” she said, adding that US President Donald Trump also pressure for an agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Trump will welcome Netanyahu for the White House interviews in Washington, DC on Monday.
‘Railing path’
Earlier on Saturday, the far-right minister of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a key member of the Netanyahu power coalition, called on the Israeli Prime Minister to “abandon the path of surrender”.
In an article on X, Ben-Gvir wrote that any cease-fire agreement which would include the withdrawal of Israel from the “conquered territories”, the release of Palestinian prisoners, or the “revitalization of Hamas with humanitarian aid” would constitute a “reward for terrorism”.
“The only way to reach victory and safely return our hostages is the complete conquest of the band, a total cessation of” humanitarian “aid and encouragement to emigration,” he said.
“I call the Prime Minister to abandon the path of surrender and come back to the path of victory.”
Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American scholar from the Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, told Tel Aviv Tribune that he thought that Netanyahu “did not want to end the war in Gaza”.
If Netanyahu stops fighting, it could lead to the fall of his government, therefore “what he does now is to cover his bets,” said Bartov.
“What he tries to negotiate is something that seems really cynical-both from the point of view of the war that occurs constantly in Gaza, and from the point of view of the hostages of the hostages,” he said.
He said that this is due to the fact that the cease-fire proposal only provides for the return of 10 Israeli captives held by Hamas, “on probably 20 which are still alive”.
“This will allow (Netanyahu) to say:” Hamas has not fulfilled all the conditions and, consequently, we must resume the fights, “said Bartov.” And Hamas will have to accept this. “
“ People just die from trying to get food ”
In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel’s relentless bombing continued, soldiers bombing a school led by the United Nations and a residential building in Gaza City, killing at least nine people.
Zahwa Salmi, who survived the attack on the Al-Shafi school in Gaza City, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the bombing occurred early in the morning while the displaced families were sleeping.
“Around 2:15 am (23:15 GMT), we heard the sound of something devastating exploding in the corridor,” she said.
“People cried out,” There is no God but Allah! ” Help us, someone! But then we no longer heard his sound. »»
The victims of Israeli attacks also included nine people, including three children, who were slaughtered near the distribution point for GHF aid in the south of Rafah.
Hani Mahmoud, from Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Gaza City, said that the survivors of the attack on the GHF site said they were afraid of picking up the dead because they were also afraid of being slaughtered.
“The number of Palestinians killed while trying to get food has now crossed 700.
“It also reveals another side of the GHF. Everything they do is hardly a relief. It is largely performative – there is nothing truly humanitarian on this subject. They bulky they are desperate in dangerous conditions with zero security and zero transparency.”
The deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), Charles Skau, who made his fourth visit to Gaza since the start of the War of Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday, said that the situation in the enclave was the worst he ever seen.
“It is difficult to find words to describe the level of despair that I have witnessed. People just die to try to get food,” he said in a statement.
Skau reiterated his call at the end of hostilities.
“A ceasefire is necessary urgently,” he wrote. “During the previous ceasefire, we showed what was possible: deliver more than 8,000 food trucks in just 42 days. We can do it again, but we need all routes and entry points to open, and we need security in order to be able to reach the most vulnerable. ”