Gaza-Israel Conflict | October 2023

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Gaza ceasefire talks to resume in coming days​

Tom Bennett
BBC News
Reporting from London

AFP

Negotiations over a potential Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal are set to resume in Doha in the coming days, officials from the US, Israel and Qatar have said.

A spokesperson for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an Israeli delegation will travel to Qatar on Sunday.

It is not yet clear whether Hamas has agreed to participate in the talks.

The US believes the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week - seen as one of the group's most extreme figures - may open the door to an agreement, though Hamas has accused Israel of being the primary block to any deal.

“With Sinwar gone,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told journalists, “there is a real opportunity to bring [the hostages] home and to accomplish the objective.”

That objective, Mr Blinken said, was to reach a deal "so that Israel can withdraw, so that Hamas cannot reconstitute, and so that the Palestinian people can rebuild their lives and rebuild their futures".


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew1jkgd7n8o
Qatar’s foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Qatari mediators had "re-engaged" with Hamas since Sinwar's death, but there was “no clarity” over the groups current plans with regards to ceasefire talks.

"There has been an engagement with the representatives from the political office in Doha. We had some meetings with them in the last couple of days," he said, adding that Egypt was also in "ongoing" discussions with Hamas.

A Hamas delegation met with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo on Thursday evening to discuss the situation in Gaza, one senior Palestinian official and one Egyptian official told the BBC.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X that he welcomes Egypt's "readiness to advance a deal for the release of the hostages".

Previous discussions over the long-sought after deal have centred around a proposal from US President Joe Biden in May, which was “positively” received by Hamas.

That proposal laid out a three-step plan that would begin with a six-week ceasefire, in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza.

There would also be a "surge" of humanitarian aid, as well as an exchange of some hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

It would eventually lead to a permanent "cessation of hostilities" and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza.

But talks faltered, with a key sticking-point being Netanyahu's insistence on an Israeli troop presence on the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi corridor.

Blinken is on his 11th visit to the Middle East since the start of the current war between Israel and Hamas more than a year ago, and is set to end his trip on Friday.

During the visit, he announced an additional $135 million of aid “in humanitarian assistance, water, sanitation, maternal health for Palestinians in Gaza, in the West Bank, as well as in the region”, taking the total amount of US aid since the start of the war to some $1.2 billion.

 

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Gaza war's 'darkest moment' unfolding in north, UN says​

David Gritten
BBC News

World Health Organization

The WHO posted a photo showing patients being treated inside Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia

The UN human rights chief has said the war in Gaza's “darkest moment” was unfolding in the north of the territory.

“As we speak, the Israeli military is subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and risk of starvation,” Volker Türk said.

He called on the world’s leaders to act, saying states had a duty under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli military, but it has said its troops have killed “hundreds of terrorists” and evacuated 45,000 civilians in Jabalia since going back into the area for the third time on 6 October with the aim of stopping Hamas fighters regrouping there.

It comes as the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he was deeply disturbed by reports that Israeli troops have raided one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO had lost contact with Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, which was overflowing with almost 200 patients amid an Israeli offensive in nearby Jabalia.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli troops had detained patients, staff and displaced people, while Israel's military said its forces were operating “in the area” based on intelligence “regarding the presence of terrorists".

Hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed and tens of thousands displaced since Israeli forces went back into Jabalia.

Residents unwilling or unable to comply with Israeli evacuation orders are said to be living in increasingly desperate conditions, with food and other essential supplies running out.

The UN human rights chief warned on Friday that the entire population of northern Gaza was being subjected to “non-stop” bombing, with hundreds of thousands ordered to move with no guarantees of return.

“Unimaginably, the situation is getting worse by the day,” Türk said.

“The Israeli government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”

 

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Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to put pressure on Israel over the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the mass displacement of civilians in the north.

“We look at northern Gaza and we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said at the start of a meeting in London.

Many Palestinians believe the Israeli military is implementing out the so-called “Generals’ Plan” in the north, which would see the forced displacement of all of the estimated 400,000 civilians there to the south followed by a siege of any remaining Hamas fighters.

The Israeli military has denied having such a plan and that it is making sure that civilians get out of harm’s way.

Safadi also warned that the Middle East stood on the “brink of regional war”, adding that every time he met Blinken the situation was getting worse, “not for lack of us trying but because we do have an Israeli government that is not listening to anybody, and that has got to stop”.

“The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral measures, illegal measures in the West Bank, that is also pushing the situation to the abyss,” he stated.

Blinken met with Arab leaders and foreign ministers in the UK following a diplomatic tour of the Middle East.

The US is believed to be working on a plan for post-conflict Gaza, trying to get buy-in from Arab countries even though progress on a ceasefire and hostage deal for Gaza has been stalled for weeks.

Blinken said he was having important conversations “on ending the war in Gaza and charting a path for what comes next”. He also said there was a “sense of real urgency in getting a diplomatic resolution” to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Thursday, Israel said it would send the head of its Mossad intelligence agency to Doha on Sunday to meet the CIA director and Qatar’s prime minister amid renewed efforts to restart the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.

It came after a Hamas delegation met Egyptian security officials in Cairo. Hamas said there had been no change in its conditions for a deal, which include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 42,840 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.