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19-02-2024
DOHA: Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani says his country’s mediation efforts will continue despite an agreement between Israel and Hamas appearing unlikely at the moment as Israel prepares to mount an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The talks, which involved officials from the United States and Egypt, have so far failed to produce results as Hamas and Israel have highly diverging views.
“The pattern in the last few days is not really very promising but … we will always remain optimistic and will always remain pushing,” Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the foreign minister of Qatar, playing a key mediator, said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
He added that since the scale of this proposed agreement is much larger than the one reached last year, which included a temporary ceasefire and exchange of prisoners, challenges are expected.
Al Thani also cited a lag in the “humanitarian part” of the negotiations: Hamas wants Israel to withdraw from Gaza and allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave, but officials in Tel Aviv have called those “delusional demands”.
Osama Hamdan, a senior spokesperson for Hamas, told Al Jazeera: “The main point of disagreement is Netanyahu and his games. He is trying not to have any arrangements or agreements. That is clear.”
Hamdan added that Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh had shown a “positive position” towards negotiations and “willingness” to achieve a ceasefire in a statement on Saturday that said the group wants a complete cessation of Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said a new deal “does not appear very close” while again opposing a two-state solution backed by Tel Aviv’s allies in the West, along with countries in the region.
“How can we give recognition to such a state after the massacre of October 7? This would be a reward for terrorism,” he said during a televised address in reference to the Hamas attack that Israel has been retaliating for since.
Israeli leaders have remained adamant on their plans to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost area in Gaza where more than 1.4 million of the total 2.3 million population has been forcibly displaced, despite international pressure.
Israeli forces killed dozens of people on Saturday and Sunday in intense bombings and ground assaults on southern Gaza, according to media reports.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has put the death toll since the start of the war at about 29,000 people, with thousands still missing and many injured.
The US has indicated that it will veto a ceasefire resolution proposed by Algeria in the United Nations Security Council, as US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement late on Saturday. (Int’l News Desk)
