JERUSALEM: As the casualty toll from a massive Israeli operation in the northern part of the Palestinian territory skyrocketed, Israel announced on Thursday that it would send negotiators to Qatar this weekend for negotiations aimed at reaching an elusive Gaza deal.
According to the Israeli prime minister’s office, David Barnea, the chief of Israel’s Mossad espionage organization, will go to Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Sunday to hold discussions with US and Qatari officials.
With Israel under pressure to halt its operations in Gaza and Lebanon, the long-stalled peace talks appear to have resumed.
After prior attempts to reach a ceasefire and prisoner release agreement failed, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Qatar’s officials in Doha on Thursday, stated that mediators will look into additional options.
“We discussed ways to leverage this opportunity and the next steps to advance the process,” Blinken told reporters.
“So that Israel can withdraw, so that Hamas cannot reconstitute, and so that the Palestinian people can rebuild their lives and rebuild their futures,” he said, the US and Qatar were looking for a strategy.
Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani announced that US and Israeli teams will travel to Doha. He also mentioned that Qatari mediators had “re-engaged” with Hamas following the murder of the organization’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, by the Israeli forces.
An Israeli organization that advocates for detainees’ families urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas to reach a deal to release the remaining hostages following the announcement of the new negotiations. They declared, “Time is running out.”
A senior Hamas official stated on Thursday that the organization has informed Egyptian authorities that it was prepared to halt its operations in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire agreement from Israel.
According to the official, a delegation from Hamas met with Egyptian authorities in Cairo on Thursday to discuss “ideas and proposals” pertaining to a truce in Gaza.
“Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal, and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the official stated, adding that Hamas has indicated its willingness to halt the war.
School attack in Nuseirat Camp
According to Nuseirat’s Al-Awda hospital, an Israeli strike on a school in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday killed at least 17 Palestinians, including children, who were seeking refuge from the fighting.
The Israeli military claimed to have struck a Hamas command and control center located inside a Nuseirat property that was once a school.
The military reported that it had apprehended more than 200 suspected fighters and evacuated a considerable number of people in the northern part of the enclave, which has been the focus of a weeks-long operation surrounding the town of Jabalia.
“The war in northern Gaza has resumed instead of reaching a ceasefire. One Jabalia resident told Reuters via a messaging app, “The occupation is starving, besieging, and hunting us from the air and from tanks.”
Medical staff at the Indonesian Hospital, one of three hospitals still in operation in the region, said Thursday that one of their coworkers was killed by Israeli fire and another was arrested while commuting to work.
Israeli demands to evacuate the hospitals or leave patients unattended were rejected by health officials at the three hospitals, who claim they have run out of medical, food, and fuel supplies.
According to the Civil Emergency Service, its operations were suspended as a result of Israeli strikes on their personnel. A tank bombed their single fire vehicle, three of their men were injured, and five more were taken into custody by the army.
The spokesman for the rescue agency claimed that residents in such locations were left “without humanitarian, medical, or rescue services” during a news conference on Thursday.
Palestinians’ concerns that Israeli forces are vaccating the region to make room for the return of settlers who left Gaza in 2005 or to establish an uninhabited buffer zone for the military following the conflict have been heightened by the northern operation.
Israel conducted an attack to stop Hamas from gathering in the north, killing around 770 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s civil defense organization on Thursday.
“Over 770 people have been killed since the military operation in northern Gaza began,” a civil defense department spokesperson stated.
