Egypt will pass on to Hamas amended clauses of a draft Gaza ceasefire deal after talks with Israeli officials in Cairo, described as “constructive’, reportedly managed to close the gaps on arrangements for the Philidelphi border route between Gaza and Egypt and the Rafah crossing.
The US hopes that proximity talks, with Israeli and Hamas representatives in the same area, can resume in the Egyptian capital in the coming days. The White House said on Friday that reports that the talks were on the brink of collapse were false.
However, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday met with six hostages who were released from Hamas captivity in November, and one of the participants said after the meeting: “I left with a bad feeling that a ceasefire is not going to happen soon.”
Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on the growing rift between Mr Netanyahu and his intelligence chiefs‚ who are leading the ceasefire negotiations on Israel’s behalf. Mossad spy chief David Barnea and Israel Security Agency (ISA) Shin Bet director Ronen Bar both reportedly favour a ceasefire and have urged more flexibility on Israel’s part, particularly on the question of the Philidelphi corridor – a narrow strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border.
“I am facing the security establishment and the negotiating leaders alone,” Channel 12 quoted Mr Netanyahu as saying. “They display weakness and are only trying to find ways to concede, whereas I insist on Israel’s interests and am not willing to capitulate to demands that will undermine security.”
Fighting continued in Gaza on Friday and despite the Israeli military assault, militants managed to fire a rocket into southern Israel. The Israeli military said troops blew up a Hamas tunnel, approximately one kilometre in length, in the Rafah area.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 40,200 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on October 7th. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages seized in the surprise Hamas attack on that day. 105 hostages remain in Gaza and Israel has confirmed the death of 34 of them.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah announced on Friday that it completed its vaccination programme for children with polio in Gaza, including establishing vaccination centres and training medical teams to vaccinate the patients. The move came after a 10-month-old baby in Gaza was paralysed by polio, the first case of polio in the coastal enclave in 25 years.
In co-ordination with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa; the World Health Organisation; Unicef; and other health organisations, the ministry aims to vaccinate as soon as possible all the children under 10 in Gaza.
Muhamed Hadi, the top United Nations humanitarian official for the Palestinian territory, says successive Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza, including 12 this month, have displaced 90 per cent of its 2.1 million residents since the Gaza war began, often multiple times, warning that the evacuation orders are endangering civilians instead of protecting them.
Fighting also continued on the northern front with Hizbullah firing artillery rounds and rockets into the Galilee after Israeli air strikes killed at least six Hizbullah fighters and one child on Friday.
ISA chief Ronen Bar sent a letter to Mr Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant warning about the increasing attacks by extremist settlers against West Bank Palestinians. “I write this letter with pain and great fear, as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a security official, about the escalating phenomenon of Jewish terrorism from the hilltop youth,” he wrote, using the description of the extremist settlers behind most of the attacks. “The leaders of this phenomenon are trying to spin the system out of control. The violence is used for the purpose of instilling fear, ie terrorism.”
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