"Israel is not sending a delegation to Cairo for talks on a deal for a ceasefire and release of hostages from Gaza, an Israeli official told CNN Sunday."
"Another diplomatic source played down the prospects of an imminent deal, saying progress was slow and it was unlikely there would be a breakthrough within the next 48 hours."
The official said the reason was that Hamas had not responded to two Israeli demands: a list of hostages specifying which are alive and which are dead; and confirmation of the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for hostages.
This is in theory what we're waiting on. That sounds reasonable at first glance, but we do have to remember that we are only hearing from one side.
Biden and Hamas leaders said the aid convoy deaths could complicate negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal. But Egyptian security sources said the incident had pushed both sides to intensify their efforts, in order to preserve progress made so far, Reuters reported.
Seems like the IDF firing into the crowds of starving refugees, causing crowd crush and killing over a 100 people and wounding 800+ was a really bad look, so Israel is onboard instead of threatening a Rafah ground assault.
Yes because "We'll let you do your thing for 6 weeks (and keep murdering and kidnapping your displaced homeless people) then continue genociding you" isn't a very attractive offer.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected any kind of temporary ceasefire. I can't see why this would be any different.
Was Hamas even involved in the drafting of this deal or did the US and Israel just throw this together to paint Hamas as unreasonable when they reject it again? None of the articles I've read have made any effort to clarify who drew this up beyond vaguely gesturing at Israel, US, and Egypt.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. I don't know what the terms of this one are, but past cease fires have basically required Hamas to surrender. Giving up their only leverage, hostages, and allowing IDF to strictly control everyone and everything going in and out of Gaza, free to shut off power and water as they feel, and block aid.
As you say, they have very little leverage. What they can offer is returning the hostages and a guarantee of safety for Israel and in exchange, they can get peace and relative freedom. At this point they should probably negotiate for whatever they can get, because the alternative is complete destruction. Belligerence hasn't worked out well for them, perhaps they should try something else.
I wouldn't expect any trust and goodwill considering their stated goal is to genocide Jews and destroy Israel.
As best as I can find this is basically a deal that gives Israel it's biggest ask in exchange for maybe not bombing during Ramadan. So yeah something they cooked up to make Hamas look unreasonable.
Yeah, which is why this shit is still going on. Hamas would be extremely naive to think a temporary ceasefire is anything more than a promise to start bombing again later after they've refreshed their troops and stockpiled more weapons.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected any kind of temporary ceasefire.
Palestinian officials have advocated for a permanent ceasefire, with the expectation that any concessions they extract from the Israelis will be forfeit as soon as a temporary ceasefire closes.
Was Hamas even involved in the drafting of this deal
Right now, the primary advocates on behalf of the Palestinians are Qatari and Egyptian officials with sympathies toward their Arab neighbors. Any actual members of Hamas have been playing cat-and-mouse with Israeli assassins, which has in turn made the Israeli demands for a proper accounting of hostages very difficult.
After all, if you clearly state how many hostages survived the carpet-bombing of Northern Gaza, the Israelis can use that figure to coordinate their strikes in and around the southern end.
Egypt is essentially preparing a concentration camp in Sinai to house refugees from a seemingly inevitable Rafah campaign. I have some doubts about how well they're advocating for Palestine's interests.
"Talks took place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Saturday and were expected to move to Cairo on Sunday as the scale of looming starvation pushed the US to start air-dropping food into the enclave."
The Israeli agreement apparently happened in Doha, but won't be official until they sign the agreement in Cairo... where they may not actually show up.
It's passed Sunday into Monday, so we'll see where it goes, but I'm frankly not optimistic.
Its curious to see how the media narrative has turned in the wake of some of these primary votes. Biden's gone from "Israel can do no wrong" to "We're doing everything we can (short of denying them more weapons and diplomatic cover at the UN) to stop these atrocities".
I have to wonder what happens as we close in on the general election and Trump goes all in on being pro-Palestinian genocide. Do the Democrats rediscover their love of human rights and rules based international order? Or do they all double back and try to out-compete the Republicans on the "We Love Israel" front?
Being real, that depends on if Hamas and Israel want it. Seeing as Hamas literally has Israel's destruction in their charter, any ceasefire is only temporary
But, at the moment, it's war crimes vs. bigger war crimes. The question is, is the perpetrator of war crimes willing to stop war crimes when it's the only conceivable leverage to stop bigger war crimes? Big war crimes likely doesn't give a fuuuuuck about the little war crimes though - they literally killed the hostages in several situations. They are just pitching a tent because it's an excuse for them to do even bigger war crimes.
Israel didn't like the terms and they have most of the leverage, Anthony Blinken said there were a lot of "non-starters" in the offer. What exactly those were I don't think has been made public.
Rabbi Colonel Eyal Karim's remarks 14 years ago stirred controversy at the time and remain on an Israeli religious website today
He responded that in the interests of maintaining warriors' morale and fighting fitness during armed conflict, it was permitted to "satisfy the evil inclination by lying with attractive Gentile women against their will".
His nomination on Monday as the military's head rabbi by its chief of staff revived public debate over Karim. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling newspaper, weighed in with a front-page headline that read: "New chief military rabbi: rape is permissible in a war".
The independent experts affiliated with the U.N. Human Rights Council said the allegations constitute “egregious human rights violations,” adding to criticisms of the Israeli war effort in Gaza as its military reportedly prepares a ground invasion of Rafah.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers,” the experts said. “At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence.”
The release adds that some photographs of women in degrading circumstances had been distributed online by Israeli soldiers.
There has, to my knowledge, not been a single first-hand account of a woman saying "I was raped by Hamas". All of it is based on anonymous eye witnesses, dead bodies Israel assures us were raped, or doctors speaking on behalf of returned hostages they refuse to name and have yet to come forward.
For as much rape as supposedly went on it sure is strange that there aren't at least a few victims speaking of their experiences, if only just to confirm it happened. I'm happy to believe women when there are women to believe.