Two sworn enemies hold the key to ending the war in Gaza

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 28 August 2024

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By JOSEPH KRAUSS

DUBAI - The latest flurry of Gaza cease-fire talks — the back-and-forth over now-familiar sticking points and appeals from around the world — obscures a grim truth about the monthslong efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war and free scores of hostages.

Any deal requires the signatures of two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

They are sworn enemies, notoriously tough negotiators and know that the outcome of the talks will profoundly shape their legacies. In Sinwar’s case, it could mean life or death.

Both have strong incentives to end the war. But they may also think they stand to gain by holding out a bit longer, and that war is preferable to a deal that falls short of their demands.

Here’s a look at the two leaders and the constraints they face.

What does Netanyahu want?

Netanyahu has promised “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the hostages held in Gaza — goals that many believe are incompatible.

He has come under tremendous pressure from the hostages’ families and much of the Israeli public to make a deal to bring them home, even if it leaves a battered Hamas intact. The United States, which has provided key military aid and diplomatic support to Israel, is also pushing for such a deal.

But Netanyahu’s governing coalition relies on far-right ministers who want to permanently reoccupy Gaza and have threatened to bring down the government if he concedes too much. That would force early elections that could drive him from power at a time when he is on trial for corruption.

It would also hasten a broader reckoning over the security failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others — on Netanyahu’s watch. Netanyahu has rejected calls for a government investigation until the war is over.

The longer the war drags on, the more likely Israel is to achieve something that looks like victory — the killing of Sinwar, the rescue of more hostages — and the longer Netanyahu has to repair his political standing and reshape his legacy. But it also comes with risks as the number of soldiers killed in action rises nearly every day and Israel becomes increasingly isolated because of the suffering it has inflicted on Palestinians.

Netanyahu has clashed with his own defense minister over the endgame. Israeli media is filled with reports quoting unnamed senior security officials expressing frustration with Netanyahu, especially his demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza. Some have gone so far as to accuse him of sabotaging the talks.

Both Israel and Hamas say they have accepted different versions of an evolving U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal in principle, while suggesting changes and accusing the other of making unacceptable demands.

Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a local think tank, acknowledged the anger directed at Netanyahu in the local press and among segments of Israeli society but said Sinwar bore most of the blame for the impasse because he had shown little interest in compromising.

“If we saw Sinwar was serious about getting a deal, that would force Israel and Netanyahu to expose their cards,” Plesner said. The current situation is “almost like negotiating with oneself.”

What does Sinwar want?

Sinwar wants to end the war — but only on his terms.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 40,000 people, according to local health officials, displaced 90% of Gaza’s population and destroyed its main cities. Hamas has lost thousands of fighters and much of its militant infrastructure.

Sinwar’s only bargaining chips are the roughly 110 hostages still held in Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead. And he needs much more than a temporary pause in the fighting if he hopes to salvage anything resembling victory from the Oct. 7 attack that he helped mastermind.

That begins with assurances that Israel won’t resume the war once some or all of the hostages are freed. He also needs Israel to withdraw from all of Gaza to ensure that the lasting impact of the Oct. 7 attack is not a permanent reoccupation of the territory. The release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal is a sacred cause for Sinwar, who was himself a long-serving prisoner freed in an exchange. And he needs assurances that Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and rebuild them.

“Sinwar is very much concerned with bringing negotiations to a conclusion, whether with regard to a cease-fire or an exchange of prisoners, because in both cases, Sinwar will have come out as the winner,” said Nabih Awada, a Lebanese political analyst and former militant who spent years in an Israeli prison with Sinwar.

There are risks for Sinwar in drawing the talks out: More hostages are likely to die or be rescued as the war grinds on. Death, destruction and hardship in Gaza will continue, and could stoke Palestinian discontent with Hamas, with political implications down the line.

Sinwar himself, who sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list, could be killed at any time. But given the centrality of martyrdom in Hamas’ history and ideology, he may feel that outcome is inevitable — and preferable to a deal that looks like defeat.

Can any external pressure help?

Egypt and Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas, but their influence is limited.

Any pressure exerted on Hamas’ exiled leadership is unlikely to have much impact on Sinwar, who was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Sinwar is believed to have spent most of the past 10 months living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world.

The United States has provided crucial military support for Israel throughout the conflict and has shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden paused a shipment of hundreds of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs to pressure Israel not to invade the southern city of Rafah — which it did anyway.

U.S. election politics could also blunt American pressure. Biden has shown little inclination to pressure Netanyahu, and Vice President Kamala Harris has offered no concrete policy changes. Donald Trump has urged Israel to finish up its offensive but would likely be even more accommodating to Netanyahu, as he was during his presidency.

Any U.S. arms embargo is even less likely when Israel faces a potential retaliatory strike from Iran over the killing of Haniyeh. Instead, the United States has poured military assets into the region, taking some of the pressure off Israel.

Sinwar might have hoped that the targeted killings of Haniyeh and a top Hezbollah commander last month would widen the war. But that appears less likely, with both Israel and Hezbollah applying the brakes following a heavy exchange of fire over the weekend.

The cease-fire talks have continued through it all, punctuated by fleeting moments of optimism.

The mediators have spent recent weeks trying to hammer out a bridging proposal with Netanyahu, but it’s still a work in progress. It has not yet been submitted to Sinwar.

UN aid operations ‘paused’ in Gaza as Israeli offensive continues

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 27 August 2024

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By Andy Gregory

CAIRO/JERUSALEM - The United Nations has been forced to halt its humanitarian aid operations in Gaza, a senior official has warned, after Israel issued new evacuation orders for the city of Deir al-Balah.

As the latest round of high-level talks for a ceasefire in the 10-month war – sparked by Hamas’s incursion into Israel on 7 October – ended without a final agreement on Sunday, Israel issued yet another evacuation order in a part of Deir al-Balah it said was now “considered a dangerous combat zone”.

City authorities say 250,000 people have so far been displaced there in recent weeks, with families forced to sleep without shelter on roads and the nearby beach, as the UN warned of an 85 per cent shortfall in water due to just three out of the city’s 18 wells remaining operational.

And a senior UN official, speaking anonymously to Reuters on Monday, warned that, “as of this morning, we’re not operating in Gaza” to deliver humanitarian aid because “we’re unable to deliver today with the conditions that we’re in”.

“We’re not leaving [Gaza], because the people need us there,” the official said, adding that staff on the ground have been directed to try and find a way to keep operating.

“We’re trying to balance the need of the population with the need for safety and security of the UN personnel.”

The UN previously relocated its main command operations for the Gaza Strip and most personnel to Deir al-Balah after Israel ordered the evacuation of Rafah, they said, adding: “Where do we move now? ... The space to operate is being restricted more and more than ever.”

One Palestinian woman said she and her children had now been displaced 11 times.

“I left half of my children behind me near my furniture and I am now with my little ones and my daughter. Only God can help us ... I have no money for transportation, I will go to area 17 where my family is staying on my foot. I took my kids and three are left behind. No idea where,” the woman said.

The new orders have forced many families and patients to leave Al-Aqsa Hospital, the main medical facility serving central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of residents and displaced people had taken shelter, for fear of bombardments.

While Israel said it had informed health officials that the facilities did not need to be evacuated, the hospital is close to the area covered by the evacuation notice, and people could be seen fleeing the hospital and surrounding areas on Monday, with some pushing patients on stretchers or carrying sick children.

“Our fate is to die,” a woman named Fatimah al-Attar told the Associated Press as she left the hospital compound. “There is no place for us to go. There is no safe place.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said an explosion around 250 metres from the hospital on Sunday had accelerated the exodus.

“As a result, MSF is considering whether to suspend wound care for the time being, while trying to maintain life-saving treatment,” the charity said.

The hospital said it was treating more than 600 patients before the evacuation orders. Only around 100 patients remained on Monday, including seven in intensive care and eight in the children’s ward.

As Israel’s offensive continued, a US official said four days of high-level talks for a ceasefire and deal to return Israeli hostages seized on 7 October had ended in Cairo without a final agreement. But talks will continue at lower levels in the coming days in an effort to bridge remaining gaps.

A senior US official described the talks as “constructive” but Hamas official Osama Hamdan criticised those remarks as false and intended to boost electioneering in the upcoming presidential ballot. Hamas said it rejected new conditions made by Israel during the talks.

The development came after Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah traded heavy fire early on Sunday but backed off from sparking a widely feared all-out war, as both sides signalled that their most intense exchange in months was over.

Hezbollah claimed to hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv as part of a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones, and Israel claimed its dozens of strikes had been pre-emptive to avert a larger attack. Neither offered evidence.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the attack, a response to Israel’s killing of a top militant commander in Beirut last month, had been delayed to give the Gaza ceasefire talks a chance, and so fellow Iran-backed groups could discuss with Iran whether to attack Israel all at once.

He said Hezbollah will “reserve the right to respond at a later time” if the results of Sunday’s attack aren’t sufficient. He added that allied Houthi rebels in Yemen – and Iran itself – had yet to respond. But he told the Lebanese people: “At this current stage, the country can take a breath and relax.”

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu said the military eliminated thousands of rockets that were aimed at northern Israel and shot down drones heading for the centre of the country, adding: “I repeat – this is not the end of the story.”

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said Hezbollah had suffered a “crushing blow” from the Israeli strikes but warned that the current situation of tens of thousands of Israelis being evacuated from their homes “is not sustainable”, vowing Israel would return its population to its sovereign territory.

Israel tortures of doctors, nurses and paramedics, HRW

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 26 August 2024

Hits: 497

NEW YORK - “Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care”, reports Human Rights Watch.

These harrowing words from Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon detained by the Israeli military while working at a hospital in Gaza, is just one of the testimonies in a new HRW report documenting Israel’s abuses against healthcare workers in Gaza since October.

They all follow a pattern.

First – as the released doctors, nurses and paramedics describe – they were swept up in mass detentions, most often at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military.

Once in Israeli custody, mistreatment began immediately. Healthcare workers reported being forced to strip publicly at once and remain kneeling for long periods, outside and exposed to the elements.

Second, they were removed from Gaza to detention facilities in Israel and the occupied West Bank. There, they recount, they were beaten, blindfolded, and handcuffed for weeks on end. Israeli interrogators tried to force them to confess to being members of Hamas, using various threats, like endless detention, rape, and the killing of their families back in Gaza.

Former detainees describe how their mistreatment in Israeli custody also included being held in appalling conditions, deprived of adequate food and water, and denied medical care.

And again, these were all healthcare workers, none of whom was ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense.

The accounts of released detainees in the new HRW report are consistent with other independent reports, including by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, other rights groups , and the Israeli news media.

Israeli authorities have not allowed independent humanitarian agencies, like the Red Cross, access to Palestinian detainees since the start of hostilities. Israel’s allies need to press the Israeli government to urgently allow independent monitoring of detention facilities.

Mounting reports of serious abuses need to be investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. Over the years, however, Israeli authorities have repeatedly failed to provide credible accountability for torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently considering applications for arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials for grave international crimes. The ICC should ensure its investigation includes abuses against Palestinian detainees.