Negotiations drag on as pressure increases. The hope of an agreement for a truce in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel clings to the refusal of each of the belligerents to leave the negotiating table first.
The plan presented in Cairo by the American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Sunday initially provides for a six-week truce, an exchange of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, an increase in humanitarian aid and the return of residents of the northern Gaza Strip displaced by the war, according to a source within Hamas.
Ultimately, all the hostages would be released as well as an unspecified number of Palestinian detainees. The army would leave Gaza entirely and lift the siege of the territory imposed after Hamas took power there in 2007.
Populations at the end of their rope
Since Sunday, unofficial announcements, often contradictory, have followed one another. For Hasni Abidi, of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World in Geneva, “the negotiators are at an impasse”. However, no one has yet thrown in the towel.
“Hamas is studying the offer,” a Hamas spokesperson repeated on Wednesday, while a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas on Thursday of “turning its back” on “a very reasonable offer.”
If there is no trust between the two camps, they are doomed to one outcome, analysts say. The world is watching them, their populations are at their wits’ end.