Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday that any agreement to end the Gaza conflict must permit Israel to return to the battlefield until its goals are accomplished. This comes as discussions on a U.S. proposal to end the nine-month-long conflict are set to resume.
Two Palestinian militant group leaders stated that Hamas was waiting for Israel’s reaction to its most recent proposal, which came five days after the group accepted a critical component of the plan.
U.S. President Joe Biden proposed a three-pronged proposal in May; Qatar and Egypt are mediating its implementation; Netanyahu was expected to conduct meetings on Sunday night regarding its implementation.
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The goal is to liberate the approximately 120 Israeli hostages trapped in Gaza and bring an end to the fighting.
Hamas no longer wants Israel to promise a lasting ceasefire as a condition for signing an agreement. According to an anonymous Hamas source who spoke to Reuters on Saturday, the group instead stated that it would permit negotiations to accomplish that over the first six weeks.
Israel will resume fighting until its war goals are achieved, according to Netanyahu, who emphasized that the deal must not hinder this. Returning the captives and destroying Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities were the stated objectives at the outset of the war.
“The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and which has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to return hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war,” he added.
He added that the agreement shouldn’t permit hundreds of armed militants to return to northern Gaza and that it should forbid arms smuggling to Hamas via the Gaza-Egypt border.
An anonymous person familiar with the matter revealed that on Wednesday in Doha, William Burns, director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, will meet with the prime minister of Qatar, as well as the intelligence chiefs of Israel and Egypt.
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Al Qahera News TV of Egypt claimed on Sunday, citing an authoritative source, that Burns and an Israeli group are set to visit Cairo this week.
If accepted by Israel, the plan, according to a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations, may result in a framework agreement that would put an end to the war.
“We have left our response with the mediators and are waiting to hear the occupation’s response,” one of the two anonymous Hamas officials shared with Reuters.
According to another Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire negotiations, Israel is currently holding talks with Qatar and should hear back within the next several days.
Israeli demonstrations
Across Israel, demonstrators flocked to the streets in an effort to bring the hostages still held in Gaza back to Israel by pressuring the government to approve the Gaza ceasefire arrangement.
The demonstrators briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway before police cleared the route, halted rush-hour traffic at important intersections across the nation, and picketed officials’ mansions.
At least fifteen individuals were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to Palestinian health sources.
According to Hamas media and the Civil Emergency Service, three individuals were killed in a strike at a church-run school in western Gaza City that housed families. Among them were Ehab Al-Ghussein, the deputy minister of labor appointed by Hamas, whose family was murdered in May.
After taking precautions to ensure that civilians would not be hurt, the Israeli military allegedly attacked militants hiding in the school and a nearby plant that was making weapons.
Israeli tanks intensified their raids in the northern and central parts of Rafah, close to the border with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip. Three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire were retrieved in the eastern section of the city, according to health officials there.
According to the armed branches of Hamas and an affiliated militant group called Islamic Jihad, Israeli soldiers were targeted in multiple sites along the Gaza Strip by fighters launching anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.
According to the Israeli military, one soldier was killed in action and 30 Palestinian militants were slain in Rafah in the past day.
The military claimed victory in Shejaia, a suburb to the east of Gaza City, where they killed multiple gunmen and found explosives and weapons. It released a drone footage showing armed individuals, some of whom seemed injured or deceased, within a residence.
It took some time for Reuters to confirm the video.
Israeli officials estimate that 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage on October 7 when militants commanded by Hamas, the group controlling Gaza, stormed southern Israel. This attack sparked the battle.
Gaza health officials report that over 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military assault, and the coastal enclave is mostly reduced to rubble.
Officials in Gaza claim that civilians have made up the majority of the casualties throughout the conflict, while the health ministry does not differentiate between the two. With 324 casualties, Israel claims that a third of the Palestinian casualties are combatants in the Gaza conflict.
