Representatives of Hamas, Qatar and the United States are in Cairo on Sunday March 3 to “start a new round of negotiations” for a truce in the Gaza Strip, according to the pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera. On Friday, American President Joe Biden repeated ” hope “ a truce between now and Ramadan, the holy month of Muslim fasting, which will begin on March 10 or 11.
In the Egyptian capital, a Hamas delegation is due to give a “official response” to a proposal drawn up at the end of January by the mediating countries – Qatar, United States, Egypt – and Israeli negotiators, according to a source close to the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The proposal includes, in a ” first phase “, a six-week pause in fighting and the release of 42 hostages held in Gaza, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The Israelis have “more or less accepted” the plan and “the ball is in Hamas’ court”, assured Saturday, a senior American official in Washington. Israel has not confirmed this information.
Benjamin Netanyahu is also confronted by relatives of the hostages, who are urging him to reach an agreement with Hamas on their release. On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators in Jerusalem completed a four-day march that began near the border with the Gaza Strip. “We want them to come home, we want them to be alivea demonstrator told Agence France-Presse (AFP). We don’t want to wait any longer. »
Famine “almost inevitable”
The mediating countries have been trying for weeks to obtain a truce in the war which has killed 30,410 Palestinians since October 7, according to the latest report from the Hamas-administered health ministry, published on Sunday. He also reported, in a press release, 90 deaths in the last twenty-four hours and a total of 71,700 injured in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war. On the Israeli side, at least 1,160 people died in the October 7 attack, the majority of them civilians, according to a count by Agence France-Presse (AFP) based on official Israeli data.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, several airstrikes targeted the towns of Khan Younes and Rafah, in the South, according to an AFP correspondent in Gaza.
In almost five months, the war has also caused a humanitarian catastrophe. According to the UN, 2.2 million of the 2.4 million inhabitants are threatened with famine “almost inevitable”, according to Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, the United Nations agency for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. The Hamas health ministry reported 16 children died from “malnutrition and dehydration” the last days.