Will the efforts of third countries end up paying off? Talks to establish a truce in Gaza are due to resume this weekend in Cairo, after six months of war in the Palestinian territory ravaged by destruction and on the verge of famine. Joe Biden “wrote today to the President of Egypt and the Emir of Qatar to update them on the progress of the talks and to ask them to obtain from Hamas a commitment to accept and respect an agreement,” a senior American official told AFP on Friday evening on condition of anonymity.
As talks stall on a truce and the release of hostages still held by the Palestinian Islamist movement, CIA chief Bill Burns will travel to Cairo for new talks scheduled for this weekend, according to media reports Americans. The director of the American intelligence agency will meet his Israeli Mossad counterpart David Barnea as well as Egyptian and Qatari officials, according to the New York Times.
Pressure on Israel
The announcement of this new American attempt comes after the United States on Thursday pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to conclude “without delay” an agreement for a ceasefire, against a backdrop of growing pressure from the international community in the face of to the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The UN Human Rights Council also demanded a halt to all arms sales to Israel, in a resolution citing fears of “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Under pressure, Israel announced on Friday that it would authorize the “temporary” delivery of aid through the Israeli port of Ashdod, about 40 km north of Gaza, and through the Erez crossing point, between the north of Gaza and Israel. It will also allow “the increase in aid through Kerem Shalom” between southern Gaza and Israel. The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken declared that Washington expected rapid “results” on the ground, after affirming that “100% of the population needs help” in Gaza.
Malnutrition lurks, NGOs powerless and threatened
The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, for his part judged the measures announced by Israel “scattered” and insufficient. During a meeting of the UN Security Council, the head of the NGO Save the Children-USA, Janti Soeripto, estimated that “the next batch of mass deaths of children in Gaza would not come from bullets and bombs, but starvation and malnutrition.”
Strictly controlled by Israel, aid coming mainly from Egypt enters in dribs and drabs via the Kerem Shalom crossing. But several international NGOs have warned of their near impossibility of working safely in the Gaza Strip, where some have suspended their operations after the death on Monday of the seven humanitarian workers from World Center Kitchen (WCK) in an Israeli drone strike. The Israeli army admitted to having made a series of “serious errors”, claiming to have wrongly believed it was targeting “Hamas agents” in three vehicles.