Intensive talks are under way over a second Gaza ceasefire to facilitate a further release of hostages held by Hamas. The parties are reportedly reviewing the names of hostages and Palestinian security prisoners who might be released.
Hamas politbureau chief Ismail Haniya held talks in Cairo with senior Egyptian officials on Wednesday and Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah is also expected in the Egyptian capital in the coming days.
Israel has already indicated it will be willing consider freeing “high quality” detainees with “blood on their hands”, meaning Palestinians who murdered Israelis, and, in return, is insisting that the remaining women among the 129 hostages in Gaza, along with the elderly and those in ill health, be released first.
The United Nations Security Council has again postponed a vote calling for a new ceasefire in Gaza as diplomats struggle to agree on the language of the draft resolution. The UN draft resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates, has been changed several times amid reported policy differences inside the Biden administration.
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The vote was initially scheduled for Monday but it has been repeatedly delayed in an effort to avoid a third United States veto since the conflict began more than two months ago.
Meanwhile, as the fighting in Gaza raged, the Hamas authorities reported that more than 20,000 residents have been killed. The war began on October 7th when heavily-armed Hamas gunmen entered 22 communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping another 240.
International aid groups say Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven to the brink of catastrophe by wholesale destruction that has driven 90 per cent of them from their homes and left many malnourished and gravely short of clean water and medical care.
The Israeli military is contemplating a move to the next phase of the war in the second half of January. This will entail pulling out most of the troops, setting up a buffer zone and switching to division-level military forays into the enclave if specific threats are identified. However, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who fears a right-wing political backlash if he winds down the offensive, has still not endorsed such a plan.
Mr Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in a statement issued on Wednesday. “Whoever thinks that we will stop is detached from reality,” he said. “All Hamas terrorists, from the first to the last, are dead men walking.”
Meanwhile more information has emerged of Friday’s incident in which three hostages were mistakenly shot dead by Israeli troops after escaping from captivity in Gaza city.
The three hostages were recorded on a camera that was attached to a dog from the elite Israeli Defence Forces canine unit Oketz, a few days before they were killed. But the footage was not checked because the dog was killed by Hamas gunmen.
In the footage, which was only examined later, the hostages are heard calling for help in Hebrew.
Greece has advised commercial vessels sailing in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to avoid Yemeni waters and to sail through the southern Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at night.
The development came after recent attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on vessels prompted leading shipping companies to reroute around the African continent to avoid the Suez Canal, the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia.
The Houthis, who control much of Yemen, justified their attacks as a response to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and have said they will continue until Israel stops the offensive.
The attacks led the US to launch a multinational taskforce to safeguard Red Sea shipping lanes. – Additional reporting: Guardian/Reuters
