©Reuters. A tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, seen from southern Israel, March 2, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
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By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Mediators are expected to meet again in Cairo as early as Sunday and seek a formula acceptable to Israel and Hamas for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, sources familiar with the talks said, after foreign governments resorted to airdrops to help desperate civilians. in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli and Hamas delegations are expected to arrive in Cairo on Sunday, two Egyptian security sources said, although another source briefed on the talks said Israel would not send a delegation until it obtained a full list of hostages still alive.
Hopes for the first pause in fighting since November rose last week after an earlier round of talks brokered by Qatar and Egypt in Doha and indications from US President Joe Biden that a deal was close.
A senior American official said Saturday that the framework for a six-week pause in fighting was in place, with Israel’s agreement, and now depended on Hamas agreeing to release hostages it had held in Gaza after attacks in the south of Israel on 7 October. .
“The path to a ceasefire right now, literally right now, is simple. And there is an agreement on the table. There is a framework agreement. The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” the official said to journalists. “The onus right now is on Hamas.”
Biden has said he hopes a ceasefire will be reached by the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins March 10.
Biden and other world leaders are under growing pressure to ease the Palestinians’ increasingly desperate situation after five months of war and Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The United Nations says a quarter of the population – 576,000 people – is on the verge of famine.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces killed 118 people on Thursday as they tried to reach an aid convoy near Gaza City, sparking global outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe. A day later, Biden announced plans for Saturday’s US airdrop, which also involved Jordanian forces.
Other countries, including Jordan and France, had already carried out aid drops on Gaza.
HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE
The United States has been calling for months for Israel to allow more aid to Gaza, something Israel has opposed. Some experts said being forced to resort to expensive and inefficient airdrops was the latest demonstration of Washington’s limited influence on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Israel denies limiting humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians.
US military aircraft delivered 38,000 meals over Gaza, far short of the assistance needed by the territory’s 2.2 million people. U.S. authorities said it was the first of a sustained effort.
Israel disputes the Health Ministry’s death toll in the food convoy catastrophe and said most victims were trampled or run over.
Israel launched the offensive in response to an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, whose militants poured across the border from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 253 others, according to Israeli counts.
The assault devastated Gaza. According to Gaza health authorities, much of the Hamas-run enclave has been devastated and more than 30,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured.
Fighting raged in the early hours of Sunday, when residents reported the sound of heavy shelling and tanks advancing around Khan Younis, a town in the southern Gaza Strip.
Around Rafah, another southern city where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge on the border with Egypt, authorities said 25 people were killed between Saturday and Sunday morning. Among them, 11 died when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent near a hospital and 14 others in a family, who died when an attack hit a house.
Hamas has not backed away from its position that a temporary truce must be the start of a process towards a total end to the war, Egyptian sources and a Hamas official said.
However, Egyptian sources said Hamas had been offered assurances that the terms of a permanent ceasefire would be worked out in the second and third phases of the deal. The length of the initial break of around six weeks had been agreed, the sources said.
Hamas and Israel did not respond to requests for comment.