GAZA: Talks resumed in Egypt Saturday aimed at halting months of war in Gaza between Hamas and the Zionist entity that have triggered protests around the world. Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States sat down with a Hamas delegation to hear the militant group’s response to a proposal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, according to details released by Britain.

The Zionist entity has yet to send a delegation to Cairo, with a top official telling AFP that it would do so only if there was “positive movement” on the proposed framework. “Tough and long negotiations are expected for an actual deal,” the Zionist official cautioned. Previous negotiations stalled in part on Hamas’ demand for a lasting ceasefire and Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated vows to crush the group’s remaining fighters in the southern city of Rafah, which is flooded with displaced civilians. The prospect of an assault on Rafah has sparked deepening international concern.

More deaths

The Zionist entity’s offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,654 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry. Gaza’s civil defense agency and hospitals reported more deaths from Zionist strikes in Rafah as well as areas farther north. The United Nations says more than 70 percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been completely or partly destroyed, and rebuilding will require an effort unseen since the aftermath of World War II.

Accepting a ceasefire deal with the Zionist entity should be a “no-brainer” for Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday. “The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said. The World Health Organization says 1.2 million people, half of the Gaza Strip’s population, have sought refuge in Rafah.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of possible dire implications for the 1.2 million people sheltering in Rafah. “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, formerly Twitter. In a statement, the WHO announced contingency efforts, but warned “the broken health system would not be able to cope with a surge in casualties and deaths that a Rafah incursion would cause”.

“This contingency plan is Band-Aids,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva. “It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial additional mortality and morbidity caused by a military operation.” According to the WHO, most of the besieged territory’s health facilities have been damaged or destroyed amid heavy Zionist bombardment. Only 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 22 of its 88 primary health facilities are “partially functional”, the UN health agency said.

“As part of contingency efforts, WHO and partners are urgently working to restore and resuscitate health services,” the statement said. It added that Rafah’s three currently operational hospitals would become unreachable “when hostilities intensify in their vicinity”. Instead, the WHO is working to restore south Gaza’s largest hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex in nearby Khan Yunis, and establish additional medical sites. “The ailing health system will not be able to withstand the potential scale of devastation that the incursion will cause,” Peeperkorn said.

A military operation in Rafah could spark a new wave of displacement, leading to more overcrowding, limited access to food, water and sanitation and more outbreaks of disease, he added. In its statement, the WHO called “for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and the removal of the obstacles to the delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance into and across Gaza, at the scale that is required”.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said that a military operation in Rafah “could lead to a slaughter”. “For agencies already struggling to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, a ground invasion would strike a disastrous blow,” he told reporters. “Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death.” Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, which is linked to the intelligence services, quoted an unidentified high-ranking source as saying “there is significant progress in the negotiations” and that the mediators have “reached an agreed-upon formula on most points of contention”. A senior Hamas official told AFP before the talks resumed that the movement “looks with an open mind to changes in the occupation’s (the Zionist entity’s) position and the American position, but there are issues that must be addressed”.– AFP

Senior Hamas official Hossam Badran accused Netanyahu Friday of trying to undermine the latest truce proposal with his threats to keep fighting with or without a deal. Badran said Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement”. The top Zionist official, who spoke anonymously, said: “What we are looking at is an agreement over a framework for a possible hostage deal.”

He said that the sign of progress “would be if we send a delegation led by Mossad (intelligence service) chief (David Barnea) to Cairo”. The continued captivity of Zionists in Gaza has caused rising political tensions, with some protesters accusing Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the war. Demonstrators have regularly taken to the streets demanding the government reach a deal to bring the captives home. The Zionist government says 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 35 the military says are presumed dead.

Wartime wedding

US President Joe Biden has come under mounting domestic pressure to leverage more concessions from Netanyahu’s government over its conduct of the war. A letter signed by 88 congressmen from Biden’s Democratic Party expressed serious concern over the Zionist entity’s “deliberate withholding” of aid for Palestinian civilians urged Biden to consider halting arms sales unless the Zionist entity’s conduct changes.

Washington has already exerted pressure and the Zionist entity has allowed increased aid deliveries. Food availability has improved “a little bit” but the threat of famine has “absolutely not” gone away, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn said on Friday.

In a rare break from the daily struggle to survive, dozens of Palestinians gathered under decorative lights in Khan Yunis for a mass wedding on Friday. The grooms, one of them on crutches, wore matching dark suits over white shirts. The war remained close, though. The Zionist entity’s military said its fighter jets struck a munitions site in the Khan Yunis area on Friday after a projectile was fired towards the Zionist entity. – AFP