Concerns grew on Tuesday (3 September 2024) about the possibility of securing a Gaza ceasefire, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to make “concessions” in stalled talks towards a hostage release deal.
Mr Netanyahu told a televised press conference at the end of a day of national protests that he “will not give in to pressure” to reject demands in indirect negotiations with Hamas to end the war, now approaching its 12th month.
Analyst Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group said Mr Netanyahu’s remarks showed “he will not end the war … until Hamas surrenders, and he has publicly announced there will be no hostage deal”.
Gripped by grief and anger after six dead hostages were found in Gaza, Israelis took to the streets on Sunday (September 3, 2024) and Monday (September 2, 2024) to increase pressure on the government to release the remaining prisoners. .
The military said the six were all taken alive when Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel that triggered the war, and was shot dead by the captors shortly before the forces met.
“These killers executed six of our hostages,” said Mr Netanyahu, who has faced increasing accusations from critics in Israel as well as Hamas officials and analysts of prolonging the war for political gain.
US President Joe Biden, who on Monday (September 2, 2024) met negotiators working with Qatar and Egypt to try to secure a ceasefire deal, said “no” when asked by reporters in Washington if he thought Mr Netanyahu had done enough to secure it. hostage deal.
The veteran Israeli leader, whose ruling coalition relies on the support of far-right ministers who oppose the ceasefire, insisted that “we said yes” when Hamas refused to make concessions.
“I will not give in to pressure,” Mr. Netanyahu told a press conference, saying Israel must control the Gaza border with Egypt to stop Hamas from re-arming.
Israel is left-leaning every day Haaretz said Mr. Netanyahu was “masking the motive with security concerns” but he said he was mainly concerned with his own political safety.
“His coalition … could be dismantled if the Gaza deal goes through,” he said.
‘Infinite Occupancy’
Mr. Netanyahu again called for “maximum pressure on Hamas” and stated that the “achievement of the war objective” required control of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Hamas has long demanded Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and Egyptian officials have expressed objections to Israel’s military presence along the border.
Mr. Netanyahu “wants to control Gaza to some degree indefinitely” and is now “just talking more openly”, Ms. Zonszein told me AFP.
Despite the “huge opposition” among Israelis who support the Gaza deal, “there is also no one in the political realm who can challenge them,” the analyst said.
Israel took control of the Gaza Strip in 1967 and kept troops and settlers there until 2005, when it withdrew but imposed a crippling blockade and, since the current war, a siege.
Increasing pressure on Israel, Britain said on Monday (2 September 2024) it would suspend some arms exports, citing the “obvious risk” they could be used to violate international humanitarian law.
Meanwhile, fighting continues in Gaza, where civil defense rescuers reported two deaths, including a child, in an Israeli attack on a displacement camp near Khan Yunis on Tuesday (September 3, 2024).
The civil defense agency is also a witness and AFP correspondents reported more air and artillery strikes in southern and central Gaza.
Vaccination drive
Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has so far killed at least 40,786 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office said most of the dead were women and children.
The Oct. 7 attack on Israel left 1,205 people dead, most of them civilians and including hostages who died in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Scores were released during a one-week truce in November – the only one so far.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said the remaining hostages would be returned “in a coffin” if Israel maintained military pressure on Gaza.
With Gaza collapsing and the majority of its 2.4 million residents forced to flee, often sheltering in cramped and unsanitary conditions, disease has spread.
After the first case of polio was confirmed in 25 years, a vaccination drive took place on Sunday (September 1, 2024) with a local “humanitarian pause” for fighting.
About 160,000 children received their first dose of polio vaccine on Sunday (September 1, 2024) and Monday (September 2, 2024) in central Gaza, the region’s health ministry said.
