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ShareDOHA/ANKARA/GAZA: The United States hailed a “promising start” to Gaza ceasefire talks Thursday, as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that has killed 40,000. The conflict has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a towering humanitarian crisis. Talks involving CIA director William Burns opened in the Qatari capital Doha, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
It was not immediately clear if Hamas had sent any delegates to the meeting, which the Zionist entity planned to attend. “Today is a promising start,” Kirby told reporters in Washington, adding: “There remains a lot of work to do.” The talks were expected to continue on Friday, he said. “We need to see the hostages released, relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, security for (the Zionist entity) and lower tensions in the region, and we need to see those things as soon as possible,” he added.
So far, there has been only one, weeklong truce in November, when Gaza fighters released 105 captives seized in the Oct 7 attack in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Zionist jails. A Hamas official said the Islamist movement would demand the implementation of the plan that Biden said would start with an initial six-week “complete ceasefire”, the release of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid as the warring sides negotiate “a permanent end to hostilities”.
The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 – which UN human rights chief Volker Turk called a “grim milestone”. “Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the (Zionist Occupation) Forces to comply with the rules of war,” he added. The Gaza ministry said the tally included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since the weeklong truce in November. One of the Palestinians freed at that time was among two people killed in a Zionist air strike in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian sources said. Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in the Zionist entity have said Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.
Zionist media this week quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling... in part because of (the Zionist entity)”. Netanyahu’s office accused Gallant of adopting an “anti-(Zionist) narrative” and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”. US news website Axios, citing US officials, said former president Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election, spoke with Netanyahu on Wednesday and discussed the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
The latest mediation push follows the July 31 killing of Hamas political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran. His killing sent fears of a wider conflagration soaring. Iran and its regional allies blamed the Zionist entity and vowed retaliation. Western leaders have urged Tehran to avoid hitting the Zionist entity over Haniyeh’s killing, which came hours after a Zionist strike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s military commander.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to Gaza. “I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas said to applause from Turkish lawmakers. Abbas is based in Ramallah in the West Bank, and Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas.
Nobody is allowed to enter the enclave, apart from a handful of humanitarian workers. Abbas has not been to Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007. “I will do that,” Abbas said in remarks translated into Turkish from Arabic. “Even if this would cost my life. “Our life is not more worthy than the life of a child,” he added.
He was wearing a white scarf decorated by Turkish and Palestinian flags, as were many of the deputies listening to his speech, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Abbas, who added a visit to Turkey after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, said the Palestinian people would stand tall despite the Zionist strikes.
“Gaza is ours as a whole. We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories,” he told the parliament. “There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender,” he promised. Abbas, who heads the Fatah Palestinian movement, a rival to Hamas, met Erdogan on Tuesday. Erdogan was present in parliament during the keynote address.
From the Turkish parliament floor, Abbas also commemorated Haniyeh and said prayers. A picture of the slain leader framed by red carnations was seated in one of the front chairs in the parliament as Abbas was delivering a speech. Haniyeh was a frequent visitor to Turkey and had close ties with Erdogan, who deemed Hamas as a liberation movement. Erdogan has been a fierce critic of the Zionist entity’s conduct in the war, dubbing Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza”. Abbas commended Erdogan’s “courageous” stance and criticized the international community’s “silence to the massacres carried out by (the Zionist entity)”.
Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. More than 370 Hezbollah members have been killed in 10 months of near daily cross-border fire with Zionist forces, according to an AFP tally, more than the Iran-backed movement lost in the 2006 war with the Zionist entity. On the Zionist side, 48 have been killed, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to military figures.
In Gaza, where the war has destroyed much of the territory’s housing and other infrastructure, relatively few incidents were reported on Thursday. In the most deadly bombing, rescuers said air strikes killed five people in Gaza City. On Wednesday, dead and wounded including bloodied children arrived at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis after a Zionist strike. “I was not pro-Hamas but now I support them and I want to fight,” one grieving man shouted. - Agencies
