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Efforts to Secure Gaza Ceasefire and Hostage Release Gain Momentum

An Israeli tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border before it enters Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as seen from Israel, July 4, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
An Israeli tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border before it enters Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as seen from Israel, July 4, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Efforts to Secure Gaza Ceasefire and Hostage Release Gain Momentum

An Israeli tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border before it enters Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as seen from Israel, July 4, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
An Israeli tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border before it enters Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as seen from Israel, July 4, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza gathered momentum on Friday after Hamas made a revised proposal on the terms of a deal and Israel said it would resume stalled negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden on Thursday he would send a delegation to restart negotiations, and an Israeli official said his country's team would be led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency.

Biden welcomed the move and a source in Israel's negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was now a real chance of achieving agreement.

The Israeli remarks were in sharp contrast to past instances in the nine-month-old war in Gaza when Israel said conditions attached by Hamas were not acceptable.

A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts said the latest proposal by the militant group could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel.

He said Hamas was no longer demanding as a pre-condition an Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire before the signing of an agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout a first six-week phase.

"Should the sides need more time to seal an agreement on a permanent ceasefire, the two sides should agree there would be no return to the fighting until they do that," the official told Reuters.

Hamas later said it rejected the presence of foreign forces in Gaza, signalling its opposition to any plan to send an international contingent to the Gaza Strip to help keep the peace in the Palestinian enclave.

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a group allied with Hamas, said separately that it would consider any international or other forces in Gaza as occupiers.

- HEZBOLLAH-HAMAS TALKS

Gaza health authorities say more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive launched in response to a Hamas-led attack on Israel last Oct. 7 in which Israel said 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage.

The war has displaced hundreds of thousands of Gazans and caused a humanitarian crisis. It has also fuelled tension across the region, triggering exchanges of fire across Israel's northern border with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

Hamas said it had told Hezbollah it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal in Gaza and that the Lebanese group's leader had welcomed the step, two sources familiar with the matter said.

"If there is a Gaza agreement, then from zero hour there will be a ceasefire in Lebanon," said one of the sources, an official in Hezbollah, which says its rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel are in support of the Palestinians.

-ISRAELI FAR-RIGHT PARTNERS' CONCERNS

Türkiye's president, Tayyip Erdogan, was quoted by Turkish media as saying he hoped a "final ceasefire" could be secured "in a couple of days", and urged Western countries to put pressure on Israel to accept the terms on offer.

Some far-right partners in Netanyahu's governing coalition have indicated they may quit the government if the war ends before Hamas is destroyed. Their departure would probably end Netanyahu's premiership.

Israel's Channel 7 News reported that, at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, far-right coalition partner Itamar Ben Gvir had accused security and defense officials of deciding to resume the Gaza talks without consulting him.

Hamas' new proposal responded to a plan made public in late May by Biden that would include the release of about 120 hostages still held in Gaza and a ceasefire.

The plan entails the gradual release of hostages and the pullback of Israeli forces over an initial two phases, and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners. A third phase involves Gaza's reconstruction.

Israel has previously said it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007, is eradicated.

An Israeli delegation in Egypt on Thursday discussed details of the possible deal, Egyptian security sources said. They said Israel would respond to the Hamas proposal after discussions with Qatar which, like Egypt, has mediated the peace efforts.

A source with knowledge of the talks had said on Thursday that Israel's spy chief, David Barnea, was going to Qatar to resume talks.

In the latest fighting in Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed five Palestinians in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Gaza medics said. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, seven Palestinians were killed in a raid on the northern city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Gazans, who desperately need aid such as food and drinking water, reacted cautiously to the prospect of renewed talks. The only previous truce, agreed in November, lasted seven days.

"We in Gaza are people who sleep on death and wake up to death. We know that at any time we can die," Ibtisam Al-Athamna, who said she had been displaced nine times during the war, told Reuters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

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What to Know about the NATO Military Alliance and How it is Helping Ukraine

Flags at NATO Headquarters ahead to press conference following NATO Military Chiefs of Defense meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 18 January 2024. (EPA)
Flags at NATO Headquarters ahead to press conference following NATO Military Chiefs of Defense meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 18 January 2024. (EPA)
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What to Know about the NATO Military Alliance and How it is Helping Ukraine

Flags at NATO Headquarters ahead to press conference following NATO Military Chiefs of Defense meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 18 January 2024. (EPA)
Flags at NATO Headquarters ahead to press conference following NATO Military Chiefs of Defense meeting in Brussels, Belgium, 18 January 2024. (EPA)

President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts are meeting in Washington this week to mark the 75th anniversary of the world’s biggest security organization just as Russia presses its advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The three-day summit, which begins Tuesday, will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of NATO’s enduring support and offer some hope to its war-weary citizens that their country might survive the biggest land conflict in Europe in decades, The Associated Press said.
Much of what NATO can do for Ukraine, and indeed for global security, is misunderstood. Often the alliance is thought of as the sum of all US relations with its European partners, from imposing sanctions and other costs on Russia to sending arms and ammunition.
But as an organization, its brief is limited to the defense by military means of its 32 member countries — the sacred Three Musketeers-like vow of all for one, one for all — and a commitment to help keep the peace in Europe and North America.
That also means not being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia. Here's a look at NATO and how it's aiding Ukraine:
What is NATO? Founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed by 12 nations to counter the threat to European security posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dealing with Moscow is in its DNA.
NATO’s ranks have grown since the Washington Treaty was signed 75 years ago — to 32 countries after Sweden joined this year, worried by an increasingly aggressive Russia.
NATO’s collective security guarantee — Article 5 of the treaty — underpins its credibility. It's a political commitment by all member countries to come to the aid of any member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack. Ukraine would meet those criteria, but it is only a partner, not a member.
NATO’s doors are open to any European country that wants to join and can meet the requirements and obligations. Importantly, NATO takes its decisions by consensus, so every member has a veto.
Who's in charge? The United States is the most powerful member. It spends much more on defense than any other ally and far outweighs its partners in terms of military muscle. So Washington drives the agenda.
NATO’s day-to-day work is led by its secretary-general — former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, until he is replaced on Oct. 1 by outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
NATO’s top civilian official chairs almost weekly meetings of ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council at its Brussels headquarters. He chairs other “NACs” at ministerial level and summits of heads of state and government. Stoltenberg runs NATO HQ. He does not order the allies around. His job is to encourage consensus and speak on behalf of all 32 members.
NATO’s military headquarters is based nearby in Mons, Belgium. It is always run by a top US officer. The current supreme allied commander Europe is Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli.
What is NATO doing to help Ukraine? Even though most allies believe that Russia could pose an existential threat to Europe, NATO itself is not arming Ukraine. As an organization, NATO possesses no weapons of any kind. Collectively, the alliance provides only non-lethal support — fuel, combat rations, medical supplies and body armor, as well as equipment to counter drones or mines.
But members do send arms on their own or in groups.
NATO is helping Ukraine’s armed forces shift from Soviet-era military doctrine to modern thinking. It’s also helping strengthen Ukraine’s defense and security institutions.
In Washington, NATO leaders will endorse a new plan to coordinate the delivery of equipment to Ukraine and training for its armed forces. The leaders will renew a vow that Ukraine will join the alliance one day, but not while it’s at war.
Why is NATO stationing more troops on its European borders? While some allies have left open the possibility of sending military personnel to Ukraine, NATO itself has no plans to do this.
But a key part of the commitment for allies to defend one another is to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin, or any other adversary, from launching an attack in the first place. Finland and Sweden joined NATO recently over concern about this.
With the war in its third year, NATO now has 500,000 military personnel on high readiness to counter any attack, whether it be on land, at sea, by air or in cyberspace.
The alliance has doubled the number of battle groups along its eastern flank, bordering Russia and Ukraine. Allies are almost continuously conducting military exercises. One of them this year, Steadfast Defender, involved around 90,000 troops operating across Europe.
Isn't the US doing the heavy lifting? Due to high US defense spending over many years, America’s armed forces benefit not only from greater troop numbers and superior weapons but also from significant transport and logistics assets.
Other allies are starting to spend more though. After years of cuts, NATO members committed to ramp up their national defense budgets in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
The aim was for each ally to be spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense within a decade. A year ago, with no end to the war in sight, they agreed to make 2% a spending floor, rather than a ceiling.
A record 23 countries are expected to be close to the spending target this year, up from only three a decade ago.