Gaza ceasefire negotiators fear Netanyahu buying time to press on with war

Israeli PM sidestepping Qatari-Egyptian truce proposal already accepted by Hamas

Displaced Palestinians travel on a cart loaded with their belongings in Gaza city. Reuters

Countries mediating in Gaza ceasefire talks fear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is buying time to continue the war, sources said on Friday.

On Thursday, Mr Netanyahu sidestepped a Qatari-Egyptian truce proposal already accepted by Hamas, and rather than confirming whether his cabinet would endorse it, he said Israel would resume negotiations.

Sources said his call for a resumption of talks was possibly a "buying time" tactic, using the discussions as a distraction while his troops push on with the takeover of the entire enclave.

"He will most likely send mid-level negotiators with no powers while pressing on with the ground offensive in Gaza city," said one source.

Israel this week demanded the release of all 50 hostages held in the Palestinian territory, contradicting the current proposal for a phased release and dimming hopes for a last-ditch truce.

Qatar said the proposal that Hamas has agreed to is “almost identical” to an earlier plan put forward by US special envoy Steve Witkoff. Israel had previously agreed to the outline of that plan.

"We had already discussed a comprehensive deal to free all the hostages when Israel wanted one," said another source. "Then it had a change of heart and said it wanted a partial one. Now, it is back to a comprehensive deal.

"But even a comprehensive deal will be implemented in phases, at the end of which Israel will have to withdraw its troops and accept a long-term ceasefire for Hamas to co-operate."

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Ready for talks

If negotiations were to start all over again, they would most likely resume in Doha, but no date has been set, said the sources. "The Egyptians and Qataris are ready to do this again," said one of the sources.

On Friday, the UN declared a famine in Gaza after months of Israeli restrictions that cut off food and water supplies to more than two million people.

"Please read the report cover to cover in sorrow and in anger, not as words and numbers but as names and lives," UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in Geneva. "It's famine on all of our watch. Gaza's famine is the world's famine. It's a famine that asks: 'But what did you do?' A famine that will and must haunt us all."

The announcement comes after months of restrictions to aid deliveries imposed by Israel, which justified its actions by accusing Hamas of stealing supplies, without providing proof.

The blockade resulted in severe shortages of food items, including flour, cooking oil, sugar, milk and baby formula, and drove up the cost of existing stocks to several times their normal price, putting them beyond the reach of most of the enclave's two million-plus residents.

At least 222 people have starved to death in Gaza since Israel began its war in the territory in October 2023 following Hamas's attacks, most of them children, with the majority of deaths reported in recent weeks.

Israel's war has killed at least 62,000 Palestinians and injured more than 157,000, according to Gaza's health authorities.