Mediators in talks for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel are making a last-ditch effort this week to revive stalled negotiations, with high-stakes discussions continuing Friday against a backdrop of tension and desperation in the region. <\/p>\n
The meeting in Doha started on Thursday and is taking place as the Middle East braces for a possible Iranian attack on Israel, and after the death toll since October in Gaza reached 40,000 people, a bleak figure that underscores 10 months of suffering, malnutrition and despair in the enclave. <\/p>\n
The fear of an Iranian attack poses a further serious threat to negotiations that have already appeared tenuous in recent weeks, after a string of Israeli strikes took out Hamas\u2019 former political leader and senior figures in Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. <\/p>\n
In the meeting, Qatar, Egypt and the United States are expected to present a plan to implement a deal that could bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The deal was proposed by US President Joe Biden in May \u2013 but unresolved differences have left the path forward unclear. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what we know about the status of the talks so far. <\/p>\n
While inconclusive so far, Thursday\u2019s talks marked \u201ca promising start,\u201d National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said as they got underway in Doha. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, the militant group reiterated that there will be no hostage deal or\u00a0ceasefire\u00a0agreement without a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. <\/p>\n
Al Thani, a key mediator in the talks, has updated the Iranian foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani on the ongoing mediation efforts, according to a statement by the Qatari foreign ministry on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said during a Thursday speech to Turkey\u2019s parliament that he would visit Gaza soon, in an effort to help bring about a pause to the \u201cbarbaric aggression.\u201d <\/p>\n
In May, Biden laid out a three-phase proposal the administration said was submitted by Israel that would pair a release of hostages from Gaza with a \u201cfull and complete ceasefire\u201d and a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. <\/p>\n
The first phase would last six weeks and include the \u201cwithdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza\u201d and the \u201crelease of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners\u201d and the implementation of a temporary truce. <\/p>\n
Phase 2\u00a0would allow for the \u201cexchange for the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers\u201d and a permanent end to the fighting. <\/p>\n
In Phase 3, a \u201cmajor reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence and any final remains of hostages who\u2019ve been killed will be returned to their families,\u201d the US president said. <\/p>\n
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the group\u2019s\u00a0cross-border October 7 attacks,\u00a0in\u00a0which more than 1,200 Israelis\u00a0were killed\u00a0and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. More than 100 of those hostages remain in Gaza, their families back home pleading for a breakthrough to secure their\u00a0safe\u00a0return. It is unclear how many of the original hostages set for release are still alive. <\/p>\n
Hamas and Israel have been engaged in tedious negotiations for months. Officials from Qatar and Egypt act as intermediaries, delivering messages to Israeli and Hamas representatives in shuttle-style diplomacy since representatives from the warring parties are not present at the same location. Technical teams have flown in and out of Doha and Cairo to iron out details for a potential agreement. <\/p>\n
Despite an initial positive reaction from Hamas and Israel, both sides failed to agree on the implementation of the finer details of the proposal including the sequencing of the hostage-prisoner exchange, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and how far back Israeli forces should withdraw in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of undermining the deal as far-right members of his ruling coalition threaten to collapse the government despite pressure from the US and families of hostages. <\/p>\n
Throughout the war, the prime minister has been caught between two potent political forces: the far-right members of his governing coalition who have been opposed to any suggestion that Israeli troops should leave Gaza, and the relatives of hostages held by Hamas, who have formed a powerful pressure group and have implored Netanyahu to reach a deal. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s office on Tuesday rejected claims that the prime minister had changed positions, saying his most recent stance \u201cdoes not introduce extra conditions and certainly does not contradict or undermine\u201d the May proposal. Netanyahu\u2019s office instead accused Hamas of adding unrealistic demands to its position. <\/p>\n
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. <\/p>\n
US officials had said that talks had reached an advanced stage until Hamas\u2019 political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran in late July in an assassination Iran blamed on Israel. Israel hasn\u2019t confirmed or denied responsibility, but Iran has vowed vengeance. <\/p>\n
There were concerns that the assassination would throw a wrench in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The militant group replaced Haniyeh with Yahya Sinwar, the hardline Hamas leader in Gaza who is one of Israel\u2019s most wanted men. While Haniyeh, a relative moderate, lived in Qatar and was susceptible to pressure from his host country, Sinwar is believed to be deep underground in a tunnel in Gaza and is hard to reach. <\/p>\n
Hamas on Thursday denied it was having difficulty communicating with its leader Sinwar, after one of its top officials Osama Hamdan reportedly acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday that there are \u201csome difficulties\u201d and delays in communicating with him. <\/p>\n
Hamas hasn\u2019t ruled out an agreement with Israel, but said that it won\u2019t engage in further negotiations. It instead asked mediators for a plan to implement a ceasefire proposal put forward by Biden. <\/p>\n
Asked why Hamas has been unclear about whether it will attend the ceasefire talks, the source said: \u201cThis ambiguity is the movement\u2019s position, which was announced in its latest statement, is intentional and did not come by chance. It comes as a result of Netanyahu\u2019s behavior.\u201d <\/p>\n
This latest round of ceasefire talks were the result of a major diplomatic effort by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US to push for a last-ditch effort to end the war and free the hostages as Iran prepares to attack Israel. <\/p>\n
The urgency of the talks was highlighted by the three mediators, who issued a rare joint statement last week calling on the warring parties to return to negotiations and offered what they called a \u201cfinal bridge proposal\u201d to overcome the remaining sticking points. The details of that proposal have not been made public. <\/p>\n
In parallel, US and Middle East diplomats have been mobilizing to dissuade Iran from launching an attack on Israel that could lead to a wider regional war. Both Iran and the US have said that that lines of communication between them are open through intermediaries. <\/p>\n
There have been some indications that Iran may\u00a0abandon plans to attack Israel\u00a0if a ceasefire deal is reached. But the country\u2019s mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehran\u2019s retaliation is \u201ctotally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire.\u201d <\/p>\n
As of Tuesday afternoon, US officials didn\u2019t believe that Iran has decided on a course of retaliatory action against Israel, according to two US administration officials. Furious diplomatic backchannel efforts are ongoing to try to deter a wide-scale attack and de-escalate the volatile situation, one of those officials said. <\/p>\n
The second official added that the Biden administration does believe that the US\u2019s public warnings in recent days have affected Iran\u2019s calculus. <\/p>\n
The conversation between Al Thani and Kani was \u201cpositive,\u201d a diplomat familiar with the call said. <\/p>\n
Biden acknowledged the challenges facing a ceasefire deal\u00a0Tuesday, telling reporters traveling with him to New Orleans he\u2019s \u201cconcerned\u201d about negotiations between the two parties amid the looming threat of an attack on Israel from Iran. <\/p>\n
The president rebuffed questions on what he\u2019s doing to pressure Israel and\u00a0Hamas\u00a0to come to the bargaining table for proposed ceasefire deal talks Thursday, telling reporters, \u201cIf I told you what pressure tha\ufefft I\u2019m putting on it, it wouldn\u2019t be very much pressure would it?\u201d <\/p>\n
The lack of clarity on whether the Israeli prime minister will adhere to Biden\u2019s May proposal, the source added, suggests time is running out to strike a deal before an Iranian attack. Qatar and Egypt, the source said, may not have enough influence to push Hamas to compromise. <\/p>\n
This story has been updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Mediators in talks for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel are making a last-ditch effort this week to revive stalled negotiations, with high-stakes discussions continuing Friday against a backdrop of tension and desperation in the region. The meeting in Doha started on Thursday and is taking place as the Middle East braces for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}