Hamas heads to truce talks as sword hangs over Rafah
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories—Hamas said its delegation was heading to Cairo on Saturday to resume Gaza truce talks, as the United Nations warned that an Israeli assault on the city of Rafah could produce a “bloodbath.”
Foreign mediators have been waiting for the Palestinian militant group to respond to a proposal to halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Months of talks have stalled in part on Hamas’ demand for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to crush the group’s fighters in Rafah.
Blinken on Friday also reiterated Washington’s objections to the long-threatened Rafah offensive, saying Israel has not presented a plan to protect the civilians sheltering there.
“Absent such a plan, we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable,” he said.
Dire implications
Humanitarian groups and the United Nations have begged Israel to call off an attack on Rafah, where 1.2 million people have sought refuge.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Friday that an incursion into the far-southern city could have dire implications.
“WHO is deeply concerned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a bloodbath, and further weaken an already broken health system,” Tedros said on X.
The UN’s health agency announced it was nevertheless making contingency plans, restoring health facilities and prepositioning supplies.
“This contingency plan is Band-Aids,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories.
“The ailing health system will not be able to withstand the potential scale of devastation that the incursion will cause.”
A senior Hamas official confirmed to AFP that a delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, deputy head of the group’s political arm in Gaza, would arrive in Cairo on Saturday morning.
‘Positive spirit’
The Palestinian militant group, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, maintains it is considering the latest truce proposal with a “positive spirit.”
But a top Hamas official accused Netanyahu of trying to derail the latest proposed Gaza truce with his threats to keep fighting with or without a deal.
“Netanyahu was the obstructionist of all previous rounds of dialogue … and it is clear that he still is,” senior Hamas official Hossam Badran told AFP by telephone.
Badran said Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement” in the negotiations.
US news site Axios reported that CIA director William Burns arrived in Egypt on Friday night.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to seal a ceasefire deal in the nearly seven-month-old war.
During the last truce, over one week in November, 80 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Egyptian sources told the Wall Street Journal that Israel would give the truce talks another week, failing which it would launch its long-threatened Rafah offensive. —AFP
