WASHINGTON DC: Israel has broadly accepted a ceasefire deal with Hamas, a senior US official said Saturday, as the first American air drops of humanitarian aid were carried out over war-ravaged Gaza.
The framework agreement envisages a six-week cessation of hostilities, which could begin immediately if the Palestinian militant group signs off on the release of the most vulnerable hostages it holds, the official told reporters on a call.
“The Israelis have more or less accepted it,” the administration official said. “Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas.”
The announcement came hours after US military cargo planes began airdropping humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
The United Nations has warned of famine in Gaza, and more than 100 people were left dead earlier this week in a frenzied scramble for food from a truck convoy delivering aid, with Israeli forces opening fire on the crowd.
Saturday’s drop, which included 38,000 meals, was conducted “to provide essential relief to civilians affected by the ongoing conflict,” the US Central Command said.
A CENTCOM official told AFP that the meals were made up of US military rations that did not contain pork, the consumption of which is prohibited by Islam.
Negotiators from regional powers have been working around the clock to secure a Gaza truce by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in about one week.
“It will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages... the sick, the wounded, elderly and women,” the administration official said.
Hamas militants took about 250 hostages during their unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 that Israel says are presumed dead. It was unclear how many of the remaining hostages are deemed vulnerable.
The United States hopes any truce would create space for a more enduring peace. A Hamas delegation was expected to fly to Cairo on Saturday for talks on a truce, a source close to the group told AFP.
The administration official said a ceasefire would also allow a “significant surge” in humanitarian aid to Gaza, with airdrops not seen as a replacement for full-scale relief convoys.
“None of these — maritime corridors, airdrops — are an alternative to the fundamental need to move assistance through as many land crossings as possible. That’s the most efficient way to get aid in at scale,” a second US official told reporters.
The brutal October 7 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, according to official figures.
Israel responded with a relentless assault on Hamas-controlled Gaza that has taken a devastating toll on civilians trapped there, killing more than 30,000 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The amount of aid brought into Gaza by truck has plummeted during nearly five months of war, and Gazans are facing dire shortages of food, water and medicines.
Some foreign militaries have airdropped supplies to Gaza, sending long lines of aid pallets floating down into the war-torn territory on parachutes.
Jordan has been conducting many of the operations with the support of countries including Britain, France and the Netherlands, while Egypt sent several military planes on an air drop Thursday together with the United Arab Emirates.
Biden has pushed Israel to reduce civilian casualties and allow aid in, while at the same time he has maintained military assistance for the key US ally.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described the airdrops as a “tough military operation” that required careful planning by the Pentagon for the safety of both Gazan civilians and US military personnel.
Israel on board with Gaza peace deal, as US airdrops begin
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Israel on board with Gaza peace deal, as US airdrops begin
- International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause fighting
- Ball is in Hamas’ camp now, says senior US administration official on Gaza peace deal
Syria’s Kurds hail ‘positive impact’ of Turkiye peace talks
- “The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad
- “We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria”
ISTANBUL: Efforts to broker peace between Turkiye and the Kurdish militant group PKK have had a “positive impact” on Syria’s Kurds who also want dialogue with Ankara, one of its top officials said Saturday.
Earlier this year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ended its four-decade armed struggle against Turkiye at the urging of its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan, shifting its focus to a democratic political struggle for the rights of Turkiye’s Kurdish minority.
The ongoing process has raised hopes among Kurds across the region, notably in Syria where the Kurds control swathes of territory in the north and northeast.
“The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast.
“We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria... We want the borders between us to be opened,” she said, speaking by video link to an Istanbul peace conference organized by Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party.
Speaking in Kurdish, she hailed Turkiye for initiating the peace moves, but said releasing Ocalan — who has led the process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul where he has been serving life in solitary since 1999 — would speed things up.
“We believe that Abdullah Ocalan being released will let him play a much greater role... that this peace and resolution process will happen faster and better.”
She also hailed Ankara for its sensitive approach to dialogue with the new regime in Damascus that emerged after the ousting of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad a year ago.
“The Turkish government has a dialogue and a relationship with the Syrian government. They also have open channels with us. We see that there is a careful approach to this matter,” she said.
Turkiye has long been hostile to the Kurdish SDF force that controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as an extension of PKK, and pushing for the US-backed force to integrate into the Syrian military and security apparatus.
Although a deal was reached to that end in March, its terms were never implemented.
“In this historic process, as the Middle East is being reorganized, Turkiye has a very important role. Peace in both countries — within Turkish society, Kurdish society and Arab society.. will impact the entire Middle East,” Ahmad said.
Syria’s Kurdish community believed coexistence was “fundamental” and did not want to see the nation divided, she said.
“We do not support the division of Syria or any other country. Such divisions pave the way for new wars. That is why we advocate for peace.”
