Senior officials from the US, Israel, Egypt and Qatar are meeting as Israel is under intense international pressure to stop its bombardment of the southern Gaza city of Rafah said to be home to about 1.5 million people crammed into this small border town, amid fears of an Israeli ground offensive.
Negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza have resumed in Cairo, Egypt amid Israel’s Prime Minister’s rejection of a “delusional” ceasefire proposed by Hamas last week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “total victory” was possible in Gaza within months, even as he ordered Israeli troops to prepare to expand their ground operation, and vowed to defeat Hamas gunmen hiding in Rafah.
But UN human rights Chief Volker Türk said any assault on the city would be “terrifying” and many civilians “will likely be killed”.
US President Joe Biden has also called for civilians in the area to be protected and warned Israel against such invasion because of likely high human fatalities. Rafah has come under heavy Israeli air strikes in recent days, with deaths and injuries reported.
Netanyahu has sent his intelligence chief, David Barnea, to the talks to try to make further progress – Israeli media said he did so under American pressure.
He is joined by the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency William Burns, Egyptian intelligence officials and Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.
There is a framework for a temporary truce on the table, involving releasing Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a period of calm.
Qatar and Egypt, with US support, have been going back and forth between Israel and Hamas to try to broker a deal.
Israel said 130 hostages are still unaccounted for out of the 253 taken by Hamas-led gunmen during the 7 October attacks on southern Israel. A number of hostages have been released – including most recently two male Israeli-Argentines – but some have died.
The latest war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. Over 200 others were taken into captivity, which has elicited Israeli retaliatory war that is said to have killed over 28,000 Palestinians and injured over 68,000 in Gaza according reports from Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
More than half of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million is now crammed into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which was home to only 250,000 people before the war between Israel and Hamas.
