Israeli officials are downplaying the prospects of a new hostage deal with Hamas even as Israeli negotiators head to Qatar to discuss the details, The Times of Israel reported on Monday.
According to media reports, the deal presented on Friday during talks between Qatar, Egypt, the US, and Israel would involve the release of 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for a six-week ceasefire and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
An Israeli official told the Times that the deal still hasn’t been presented to Hamas and is only being discussed with mediators. “We need to be careful,” the official said. “We’re still talking to ourselves.”
Hamas has been seeking a permanent ceasefire, and a second Israeli official told the Times that the main gap is “the end of fighting, the IDF leaving the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that the Israeli slaughter in Gaza would continue after any truce and said a hostage deal would only delay an Israeli invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza Strip city that’s packed with 1.5 million Palestinians.
According to Haaretz, Netanyahu has also complicated the negotiations by adding a demand for the freed Palestinian prisoners to be deported to a third country, possibly Qatar or Turkey. He added the demand after Qatar, Egypt, and the US presented the new outline for a hostage deal.
“Netanyahu is giving the hostages’ families the feeling that he prefers to stick spokes in the wheels, precisely at this critical time in drafting the agreement,” one senior Israeli official told Haaretz.
The official pointed to Netanyahu’s comments about the Rafah offensive as another example of the prime minister impeding negotiations, saying it reduces Hamas’ motive to be more flexible. “Even if this is a negotiating tactic, his performances are liable to cause damage,” the official said.
Why would Hamas, or anyone, make a deal with the DEVIL? Netanyahu is a War Criminal, has been for decades and the Israelis who voted for him, is an indication that they care about one thing, decimating the Palestinians. It is the families of the Israeli Hostages blocking aid to Gaza, they don’t care that Palestinian babies, mothers, civilians STARVE, they only think of themselves. Netanyahu serves over a brainwashed population, thinking they are untouchable and World Leaders need to wake them up, to face reality. Time to sanction Israel, NO more fuel, NO more food, NO more weapons, NO more money, NO more technology, NO more excuses for their Demonic War. A deal with the Devil, will not save Palestinians, only the sanctioning of Israel will. The survival of Palestine, survival of Civilization, depends on what World Leaders will do to STOP the Genocide.
“Time to sanction Israel” Put whatever you are smoking away and come back to the real world. That is never going to happen.
“‘Time to sanction Israel’…come back to the real world. That is never going to happen.”
GH included “no more weapons” under ‘sanctions.’
“Never”? Rome wasn’t burnt in a day:
“Dutch Court Moves to Block Export of Fighter Jet Parts to Israel” NYT, 2/12/24
“European Countries Halt Arms Export to Israel as US Senate Passes Aid Bill” (gistfest 1 wk):
“Amid escalating tensions over Israel’s military actions in Gaza, several European countries have decided to halt arms exports to Israel. This move comes in response to growing concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and allegations of severe violations of international law by Israel.
“Italy and Spain…have suspended arms sales to Israel…A regional government in Belgium also [suspended licenses for gunpowder exports…
“The concern over continuing arms exports to Israel has been fueled by the [ICJ] order for Israel to comply with international laws on genocide. While Israel has rejected these allegations, the court’s ruling has increased pressure on Israel’s allies to reevaluate their support.
Nice quotes. Pointless if you think Israel is going to be sanction by the USA. If Biden would do that, he would get crushed in the upcoming election.
“If Biden would [sanction Israel], he would get crushed in the upcoming election.”
But that does not respond to what GH wrote:
GH enjoined “world leaders” to sanction Israel – not just the USA or Biden…
…and you wrote, “never going to happen” – whereas, to a now-limited extent it is happening – some “world leaders” have, in fact, limited arms to Israel.
‘Course I can’t see the future…but you’ve given no argument or evidence for dismissing wider future sanctions…whereas it’s not hard to imagine factors – Israel’s political extremism, the siege horror (including multiple and ongoing Israeli official statements), the ICJ hearings, the perceived injustice of the US UN role – leading more states to follow.
Just more bad faith negotiation by Israel.
A genocidal regime without any honour. They’ve gone insane.
This is all about Israel preparing to attack Rafah and Lebanon. It’s a feint, a distraction.
Be in no doubt – if Israel attacks Rafah, it will be exactly the same outcome as the rest of Gaza – Hamas will batter them.
Reality – Hamas is intact. This BS that Israel has undermined Hamas’ tunnel system, destroyed their fighters forcing them to flee to Rafah etc is utter nonsense.
Hamas is posting videos of their attacks on IDF forces every day. Their tunnels are basically untouched and their supply lines remain intact. Israel is losing in Gaza.
Not just that : if Israel attacks Rafah, Hezbollah will attack Israel. They’ve publicly stated that Rafah is a red line.
HB won’t muck around, either – they’ll rain missiles on Israel, destroying major cities, critical military infrastructure and inflicting mass casualties.
Perhaps that’s the only thing that might bring Israel to its senses. The trajectory right now for Israel is really, really bad : Israel as it was on Oct 6, 2023 is over.
The best Israel can hope for now is to retain its sovereignty as a much smaller, poorer and weaker nation state.
That’s the best outcome. In reality, it may cease to exist as a nation state. The stakes are that high.
A distraction and an interlude to allow Bibi & Co. to plan out the attacks. Reload, redirect IDF forces. Look for the attack to occur on March 10.
Duh,Hamas just sacrificed 30,000 civilians for the pleasure of killing 1500 Israelis. A million Gazans homeless, how many thousand maimed? Half of Gaza under Israeli rule.Nothing to be heroic about. HB acts up bad enough-Pluto boys will make several countries slag heaps. The taboo will then be broken,which will be terrible for everyone.
You’re admitting what Israel did while using Hamas as an excuse for doing it. Still genocide.
Hamas was not the excuse,it was the cause.
The cause goes back way before the excuse happened, but you know that. Israel needed a big number. They had to supply some human shields in the festival goers and kill a few of their own to get that big number but they got it. Then, it was on to genocide and a constant reference back to the excuse, Oct 7th. Going on 5 months later and it’s still working.
Israel may have allowed the attack, but the massacre on the part of Hamas was quite real. sometimes a spade is just a spade. What is the human shields you are mentioning?
Then everything is on Israel. Don’t allow the attack and there is no “massacre”. Simple as that. And the human shields I mentioned were the “festival goers”. The IDF refused to give a heads up to the festival organizers. All part of “allowing” the attack and the needed big number of dead to commence the planned genocide. Indeed, sometimes a spade is just a spade.
“HB acts up bad enough-Pluto boys will make several countries slag heaps.”
o happy little genocidal daydream
righteous self defense.
“righteous self defense”
save it for israel’s war crime trial.
but nah – israel already tried that at the icj. didn’t fly.
“Be in no doubt – if Israel attacks Rafah, it will be exactly the same outcome as the rest of Gaza – Hamas will batter them.”
1/ Even if that unsupported-therefore-worthless claim were true, my focus would still be the victims of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
In the face of that atrocity, the idea that ‘Hamas is giving IDF a fight’ really doesn’t make me feel better…though – amid the incomprehensible horror of Israel’s slaughter and starvation – it would be understandable if Gazans took some sort of enraged, despairing consolation in the idea.
2/ More broadly – though it is indeed important that Israel has accomplished little of its unaccomplishable military goal of destroying Hamas – it’s simplistic to imagine that the outcome of Israel’s military siege of Gaza will be determined mainly by military factors.
For 75 years people like you have been predicting the end of Israel and yet it still exists. Keep dreaming.
Hamas did win the war. For the first time the arrogant rich Western Democracies have been confronted with their crimes committed against the Palestinian people. The Israelis and Americans can lie as much as they want, they can’t hide their true inhumanity. They lost the PR war, the establishment elite is a cabal of dehumanized bad people, psychopaths. The whole world knows it now.
“Hamas did win the war” So if Hamas has won the war, why are so many Hamas supporters calling for a ceasefire? One would think that Hamas would want to finishes off a defeated enemy, not give them time to regroup with a cease fire.
Because war is fought for political objectives, militarism & destruction are not aims in themselves.
Hamas has achieved its political objectives of 1/ making the plight of Gaza a center of world attention, 2/ preventing peace accords between Israel and Saudi Arabia, 3/ making global public opinion hostile to Israel.
Military defeat of the IDF was never a realistic option & therefore not a political goal of the Hamas offensive. Having achieved their objectives, further fighting does not benefit Hamas, so they seek a ceasefire.
Israel’s objectives – destroying Hamas, recovering the hostages, ethnically cleansing Gaza – remains extremely difficult and costly. Israel is paying a massive price in public opinion both globally and in the USA where they depend upon US government largesse for the viability of their Zionist neo-colonial project.
It is therefore accurate to say Hamas has achieved its goals, and Israel’s goals are no closer than when the fighting started. Hamas has, to all intents and purposes, won.
I actually agree with a lot of what you said about the Hamas goals. They were willing to pay a large price to achieve sets goals. Gaza is willing to spends lives for PR. So now that they won the political battle, Hamas is now worried about the cost.
Spend implies Hamas are either doing the killing, or at least sending the people to die. They’re doing neither. They’ve provoked Israel, but it’s Israel that’s actively decided to revenge itself on Gaza’s women and children. No one forced them to do so.
“They lost the PR war”
1/ Don’t underestimate the power of US government, the US press and the US Israeli lobby to amplify and give credence to Israel’s war propaganda mill, and to stifle speech protesting Israel’s ongoing war crimes – by educators and college students, notably.
2/ It is true that social media has strengthened pov’s and groups contesting the authority of those pro-Israel narratives – purely on the level of reporting facts, I’ll guess that an important part of increasing polled US support for a permanent ceasefire is not intellectual, not due to arguments…but reaction to social media imagery revealing the unspeakable horror of Israel’s ongoing starvation and mass murder of Palestinians.
…….The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore — but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.
“The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’” applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,” write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and attacks on them “curb their evil inclination,” while babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”
…
“The King’s Torah” reflects a fringe viewpoint held by a minority of rabbis in the West Bank, said Avinoam Rosenak, a Hebrew University professor specializing in settler theology. Asher Cohen, a Bar Ilan University political science professor, thought its influence would be “zero” because it appeals only to extreme ideologues.
But the book’s wide dissemination and the enthusiastic endorsements of prominent rabbis have spotlighted what might have otherwise remained an isolated commentary.
https://forward.com/news/123925/rabbinic-text-or-call-to-terror/
Lendman reports that some extremist Israeli rabbis teach that “the ten commandments don’t apply to non-Jews. So killing them in defending the homeland is acceptable, and according to the chairman of the Jewish Rabbinic Council:
“”There is no such thing as enemy civilians in war time. The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them…. A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.’”
Lendman writes, “Rabbi David Batsri called Arabs ‘a blight, a devil, a disaster…. donkeys, and we have to ask ourselves why God didn’t create them to walk on all fours. Well, the answer is that they are needed to build and clean.’”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/07/why-is-the-us-honoring-a-racist-rabbi/
Mark Twain: “Reader, Suppose you were
an idiota *N@zi*, and suppose you werea member of Congress*Cho$en*; but I repeat myself.”This explains the Butcher Crime Minister religious slaughter in Gaza based on the ten commandments…!
Consider Hamas books calling for the total extermination of world Jewry.The ten commandments say that murder is wrong,righteous self defense is permissable.
hate builds hate
The Israelis are bombing UN aid trucks entering Gaza with white phosphorus, and Palestinian children are starving. This has to be the lowest level humanity has ever sunk to. And don’t bother with the Nazi comparisons…the only difference is the numbers.
When Hamas rape gangs defile women and lead them into captivity,when unarmed men,women and children are tortured and mutilated before,during, and after their being killed,that is as low as humanity can get.A harsh response is quite understandable.
“The Israelis are bombing UN aid trucks entering Gaza with white phosphorus” Got proof?