CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its objectives are met, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, as talks over a US plan aimed at ending the nine-month-old war were expected to restart.
Five days after Hamas accepted a key part of the plan, two officials from the Palestinian militant group said the group was awaiting Israel’s response to its latest proposal.
Netanyahu was scheduled to hold consultations late on Sunday on the next steps in negotiating the three-phase plan that was presented in May by US President Joe Biden and is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
It aims to end the war and free around 120 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
Hamas has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it would sign an agreement. Instead, it said it would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
But Netanyahu said he insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. Those goals were defined at the start of the war as dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, as well as returning the hostages.
“The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and which has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to return hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war,” Netanyahu said.
The deal, he said, must also prohibit weapons smuggling to Hamas via the Gaza-Egypt border and should not allow for thousands of armed militants to return to northern Gaza.
US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns is to meet with the Qatari prime minister and the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs on Wednesday in Doha, said a source familiar with the issue who asked not to be further identified.
Burns is also expected to visit Cairo this week, along with an Israeli delegation, Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV reported on Sunday, citing a high-ranking source.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel, and would end the war.
“We have left our response with the mediators and are waiting to hear the occupation’s response,” one of the two Hamas officials told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
Another Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasefire deliberations said Israel was in talks with the Qataris and that a response was expected within days.
Protests in Israel
In Israel, protesters took to the streets across the country to press the government to agree to the Gaza ceasefire deal, which would bring back hostages still being held in Gaza.
They blocked rush-hour traffic at major intersections across the country, picketed politicians’ houses and briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way.
In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes.
Among them were Ehab Al-Ghussein, the Hamas-appointed deputy minister of labor whose wife and children were killed in May, and three other people killed in a strike at a church-run school in western Gaza City sheltering families, Hamas media and the Civil Emergency Service said.
The Israeli military said that after it took steps to minimize the risk of civilians being harmed there, it struck militants who were hiding in the school, as well as a facility in the vicinity where weapons were being made.
In central and northern areas of Rafah, on the southern Gaza border with Egypt, Israeli tanks deepened their raids. Health officials there said they had recovered three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the eastern part of the city.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters had attacked Israeli forces in several locations Gaza Strip with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.
The Israeli military said its forces had killed 30 Palestinian gunmen in Rafah in the past day, and that one of its soldiers was killed in combat.
In Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, the military said its forces had killed several gunmen, and located weapons and explosives. It published a drone video showing gunmen, some appearing to be wounded or dead, in a house.
Reuters could not immediately verify the video.
The conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when fighters led by Hamas, which controlled Gaza, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military onslaught, according to Gaza health officials, and the coastal enclave has largely been reduced to rubble.
Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians. Israel has lost 324 soldiers in Gaza, and says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.
Netanyahu: Gaza deal must let Israel resume fighting until war goals met
https://arab.news/jmysd
Netanyahu: Gaza deal must let Israel resume fighting until war goals met
- Hamas has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it would sign an agreement
- Netanyahu said he insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met
Trump warns of ‘bad things’ if Iran doesn’t make a deal, as second US carrier nears Mideast
- Footage released by Iran showed members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s naval special forces board a vessel in the exercise
DUBAI: Iran held annual military drills with Russia on Thursday as a second American aircraft carrier drew closer to the Middle East, with both the United States and Iran signaling they are prepared for war if talks on Tehran’s nuclear program fizzle out.
President Donald Trump said Thursday he believes 10 to 15 days is “enough time” for Iran to reach a deal. But the talks have been deadlocked for years, and Iran has refused to discuss wider US and Israeli demands that it scale back its missile program and sever ties to armed groups. Indirect talks held in recent weeks made little visible progress, and one or both sides could be buying time for final war preparations.
Iran’s theocracy is more vulnerable than ever following 12 days of Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear sites and military last year, as well as mass protests in January that were violently suppressed.
In a letter to the UN Security Council on Thursday, Amir Saeid Iravani, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, said that while Iran does not seek “tension or war and will not initiate a war,” any US aggression will be responded to “decisively and proportionately.”
“In such circumstances, all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets in the context of Iran’s defensive response,” Iravani said.
Earlier this week, Iran conducted a drill that involved live-fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow opening of the Arabian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes.
Tensions are also rising inside Iran, as mourners hold ceremonies honoring slain protesters 40 days after their killing by security forces. Some gatherings have seen anti-government chants despite threats from authorities.
Trump again threatens Iran
The movements of additional American warships and airplanes, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, don’t guarantee a US strike on Iran — but they bolster Trump’s ability to carry out one should he choose to do so.
He has so far held off on striking Iran after setting red lines over the killing of peaceful protesters and mass executions, while reengaging in nuclear talks that were disrupted by the war in June.
Iran has agreed to draw up a written proposal to address US concerns raised during this week’s indirect nuclear talks in Geneva, according to a senior US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the “full forces” needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March.
The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response.
“It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise, bad things happen,” Trump said Thursday.
With the US military presence in the region mounting, one senior regional government official said he has stressed to Iranian officials in private conversations that Trump has proven that his rhetoric should be taken at face value and that he’s serious about his threat to carry out a strike if Iran doesn’t offer adequate concessions.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate diplomatic conversations, said he has advised the Iranians to look to how Trump has dealt with other international issues and draw lessons on how it should move forward.
The official added that he’s made to case to the Trump administration it could draw concessions from Iran in the near-term if it focuses on nuclear issues and leaves the push on Tehran to scale back its ballistic missile program and support for proxy group for later.
The official also said that Trump ordering a limited strike aimed at pressuring Iran could backfire and lead to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei withdrawing Iran from the talks.
Growing international concern
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged his nation’s citizens to immediately leave Iran as “within a few, a dozen, or even a few dozen hours, the possibility of evacuation will be out of the question.”
He did not elaborate, and the Polish Embassy in Tehran did not appear to be drawing down its staff.
The German military said that it had moved “a mid-two digit number of non-mission critical personnel” out of a base in northern Iraq because of the current situation in the region and in line with its partners’ actions. It said that some troops remain to help keep the multinational camp running in Irbil, where they train Iraqi forces.
“This week, another 50 US combat aircraft — F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s — were ordered to the region, supplementing the hundreds deployed to bases in the Arab Gulf states,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote. “The deployments reinforce Trump’s threat — restated on a nearly daily basis — to proceed with a major air and missile campaign on the regime if talks fail.”
Iran holds drill with Russia
Iranian forces and Russian sailors conducted the annual drills in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean aimed at “upgrading operational coordination as well as exchange of military experiences,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Footage released by Iran showed members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s naval special forces board a vessel in the exercise.
Those forces are believed to have been used in the past to seize vessels in key international waterways.
Iran also issued a rocket-fire warning to pilots in the region, suggesting it planned to launch anti-ship missiles in the exercise.
Meanwhile, tracking data showed the Ford off the coast of Morocco in the Atlantic Ocean midday Wednesday, meaning the carrier could transit through Gibraltar and potentially station in the eastern Mediterranean with its supporting guided-missile destroyers.
It would likely take more than a week for the Ford to be off the coast of Iran.
Netanyahu warns Iran
Israel is making its own preparations for possible Iranian missile strikes in response to any US action.
“We are prepared for any scenario,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, adding that if Iran attacks Israel, “they will experience a response they cannot even imagine.”
Netanyahu, who met with Trump last week, has long pushed for tougher US action against Iran and says any deal should not only end its nuclear program but curb its missile arsenal and force it to cut ties with militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Iran has said the current talks should only focus on its nuclear program, and that it hasn’t been enriching uranium since the US and Israeli strikes last summer. Trump said at the time that the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites, but the exact damage is unknown as Tehran has barred international inspectors.
Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful. The US and others suspect it is aimed at eventually developing weapons. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but has neither confirmed nor denied that.
