Qatar’s prime minister said Sunday that only “minor” issues are preventing a deal being reached between Israel and Hamas on Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
The comments from Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani came after The Washington Post reported on Saturday that an agreement on Hamas releasing at least 50 hostages in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting was close.
The Post report’s initial headline said a “tentative deal” was reached between the US, Israel, and Hamas, but it was later changed to say a deal was “close.” The report prompted denials from both the US and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed “a lot of incorrect reports” on an imminent hostage deal and added that “as of now there is no deal.” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said there was “no deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get a deal.”
Qatar has been mediating the talks, and Prime Minister al-Thani said he believed good progress has been made. “The challenges facing the agreement are just practical and logistical. There has been good progress in the past few days,” he said.
“The deal is going through ups and downs from time to time throughout the last few weeks,” al-Thani said. “But I think that you know I’m now more confident that we are close enough to reach a deal that can bring the people safely back to their homes.”
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel and the start of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, Israel has rejected potential hostage deals. According to The New York Times, a potential agreement that would have seen the release of 50 Israeli hostages was derailed when Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, which started on October 27.
Israel bombed Al-Shifa Hospital. Mass Murdering Palestinian civilians. Israel is now desperately looking for evidence of Hamas command and control centers. No evidence has been produced.
Imagine being the type of person that just shoots hospital patients in cold blood. Imagine being a person that supports mass murder of critically injured patients. Palestinians are terrorists though right? You make me sick.
These are horrendous war crimes, crimes against humanity. That they are even looking for evidence now means that it was an excuse to bomb a hospital in cold blood and under international law they have to assume its a civilian structure unless they have proof its NOT. The target was NOT Hamas, the target was to ethnic cleanse and genocide the Palestinians in Gaza.
Where is the UN, the ICC? When the dust settles every person representing the UN and the ICC must be arrested for their complicity and support of war crimes. All those who profited from supreme international crimes must also be arrested for profiteering from these crimes.
Unfortunately their wont be much of humanity left once this is done. Gaza isnt a humanitarian crisis, its a crisis of humanity. The blood lust of humanity cannot be satiated, the greed of humanity cannot be satiated it is beyond disgusting.
Nothing will be done. Nothing. I believe every country that wants to do something is worried about the nuclear armed State of Zionist Israel triggering the Samson Option.
A LETTR TO AMERICA……..how about a letter to ANTIWAR. Censorship in support of ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass murder. And the person doing the censorship is ex military, you cant make this crap up.
You cant call a spade a spade, you cant say specific truth because a war criminal is controlling what we say in a site called Antiwar. You cant call out people who profit from these atrocities because a war criminal, who has been part of the machine that commits atrocities, will ban us from saying it.
You can do all of those things. And many people do those things right here every day.
Your complaint is that you might be thwarted in your mission to discredit the antiwar cause by lying about Antiwar.com.
So this is an apology for threatening to ban me for simply speaking out?
For the record i think we all understand the need for moderation. And in general i do think you are doing a good job. I understand the environment and the constraints you work within, not of your making.
I never threatened to ban you for simply speaking out. I warned you that you will be banned if you continue violating the site’s guidelines, and won’t be banned if you don’t. That remains the case.
What are the site’s guidelines?
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Thanks for posting the rules.
” war criminal is controlling what we say in a site called Antiwar” And what is the name of this “war criminal”?
I’m a war criminal.
What a crazy idea. The next thing you know Doom will be telling us that 500 plus Nato airplanes have been destroyed. LOL
It’s not a “crazy idea,” it’s a fact. In Saudi Arabia in 1991, I had civilians abducted and held at gunpoint, and ordered them shot if they attempted to escape.
Why?
So they wouldn’t be in the way while I and another Marine cleared a building which we believed to be the source of small arms fire on one of our posts.
How would that action make you a war criminal? Seems like you were protecting them from getting into cross fire.
Abducting people and threatening them with murder isn’t “protecting” them from anything.
OK. Then I guess you are a war criminal by your own admission. I got to admit that I was taken back by your admission of being a criminal. Where these Saudi Arabian citizens that you were terrorizing? Did anyone order you to commit this crime or was it your idea?
They were Arabs, but I don’t know for certain that all of them were Saudis (lots of migrant workers there — in fact, we were living in a repurposed migrant workers’ camp at that time).
No one ordered me to commit the crime. In fact, I wasn’t supposed to be in charge. I took charge when the reac team leader froze up after we had fire team rushed across a couple hundred meters of sand to reach the building in question. A short time later, someone senior to all of us arrived. He and I went in the building and cleared it while I left the civilians under the armed guard I had set on them. Then we let them go and that was the end of it. I was never accused or charged, but I was clearly in the wrong. And unlike some, I don’t make excuses for my mistakes. If I’m ever charged, I’ll show up for trial and plead guilty.
You will never be charged. If you had a magic do over, what would you have done differently?
I honestly don’t know what I’d have done differently. Some problems don’t have any good solutions — but you’re nonetheless responsible for what you do.
There was a chance that one of them was the shooter and that he or she had hidden a weapon and walked out of the building with the civilians, so I didn’t want to just let them wander off. That turned out not to be the case. In fact, the firing almost certainly didn’t come from that building after all — the shooter, or at least a shooter, was killed a week later after he fired on two guys from my unit, and so far as I know he wasn’t even an Arab. He was allegedly Irish, and was taking potshots from a British army ambulance. The two guys who killed him were brought up on charges, but the Brits refused to provide the ambulance or the body as evidence, or even to admit that anything had happened, and it all just magically went away.
So far as I know, no one on that reac team had ever had a shot fired in anger at them before. Everyone was pretty much hopped up on adrenaline, or scared shitless, or just completely confused. Like I said, I took charge because the reac team leader just froze up. Great guy, good friend, but once we’d made it across that field he just had no idea what to do next. I improvised. Probably poorly.
Now that I think about it, I know what I WOULD have done differently: I wouldn’t have accepted a job as the US government’s hired gunman.
Thanks for the information.
No worse than they get treated by their own government… Saudi Arabia you say?..
Or i might say something crazy like a NATO SU27 just got flown to Russia by a Ukrainian pilot who defected. Did it have any NATO missiles loaded? And is this a warning to NATO what will happen to the F16’s if they appear in Ukraine?
The reason that F16’s need to go to Ukraine is because over 500 plus NATO airplanes have been destroyed.
500 Nato airplanes have been destroyed is crazy. And no NATO countries operate SU-27. Either you are delusional or you just like to make insane claims to get a reaction. Which one?
Currently its 536 but whos counting. There actually is a few NATO countries who had stocks of Sukhoi and Mikoyan aircraft.
Who is counting? No one. Because it has not happen.
Please name the NATO countries that have SU-27s. The USA has 4 for fighter combat training and that all SU-27 that NATO countries have. Yes there are other models of former Soviet planes in NATO, but not SU-27s.
You are a tad cynical Doom but you are giving me goosebumps….
This is a crisis of humanity and Antiwar is on the wrong side of humanity.
YES they will ban me because they absolutely cant have the truth, their bottom line comes first. Its called FASCISM.
And yet you’re still here. And as long as you don’t violate our guidelines, you can remain here, spouting your pro-war propaganda all you want.
If you’re talking about Knapp, you are full of shit.
I thought that also, until Knapp admitted to committing war crimes in 1991. That admission surprised me.
I defend Knapp because Knapp is antiwar. Same with Skywalker. I’ve had arguments with both, but I never question them being truly antiwar. People jump in Knapp’s shit because he doesn’t take sides in wars they are cheering on.
Where is the rest of the Muslim world? They had a big meeting in Riyadh last Tuesday. Lots of hand-wringing but then… nothing, nada, el zippo. You would think they’d at least cut off the oil.
It’s not so much as muslim world as is Arab world plus Turkey. Even f the Arabs cut off oil, Azari who already supply 40% of their oil, will just double that.
Which was predicted by Norman Finkelstein. Nothing will be done by the West or the Arab world. Or the paper lion, the United Nonsense (I mean United Nations – sorry).
“least cut off the oil” to who?
The Muslim world at this point has no reason to go to war, Right now the IDF is getting beaten up badly. The Muslim world is getting involved politically.
The parallels to Moscow and the Donbass are stunning. Moscow didn’t get involved until NATO threatened the Donbass with ethnic cleansing, mass murder, collective punishment and genocide.
From the river to the sea, the Donbass will be free.
In Gaza we see the IDF getting badly beaten up, once NATO steps in to support the IDF, ie changes the events on the ground, then the Muslim world will step in.
Keep in mind that Israel is threatening the world with nuclear war if we do not allow the mass murder to occur.
There is not much media information as to the IDF “getting beaten up badly”. The Zionists seem to be doing pretty well with their bombing runs, with rearming by the West, particularly the United States of Atrocities. I read that we may be adding a new toy, a laser anti aircraft thingy. Gaza has been proving to be a great test bed for new toys Israel can and do sell to the rest of the world: Christ Hedges discusses this in his Scheerpost.com post: https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/17/israel-is-shutting-down-its-human-laboratory-in-gaza/
grotesque.
The IDF is only killing civilians, woman, children and hospital patients. Yes there is a media ban. How many days has it been now, over a month and what really has the IDF achieved?
It is beyond grotesque, but not new, remember when Madeline Albright boasted about the death of half a million Iraqi children? IT WAS WORTH IT. Her words not mine.
Arabs claim 90 Merkavas knocked out plus dozens more armoured vehicles
IDF conscripts getting mauled on both Northern and Southern fronts. The Red Sea under blockade.
Right. The al-Shifa Hospital was the brightest of outrages, their cue to act. It only needed a big state, viz. Iran or Turkey. They spectacularly balked. The only ones with the stomach are the militias. Sadly not enough. Washington/Israel know now they are free to push to the complete fulfillment of their imperial wishes in the entire mid-East. Negotiations are now pure PR.
The militia leaders are now in Qatar-sacrificing thiei men and the lives of Gazans
A must read of the interview of Max Blumenthal by Chris Hedges: https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/17/what-really-happened-in-israel-on-oct-7-w-max-blumenthal/
Be sure to read the comments at the bottom of that interview too.
I did
The operative part of all this is that Israel doesn’t care whether or not the prisoners are released or not- they are of interest to Israel only insofar as they can be exploited for propaganda purposes. Given the indiscriminate attacks on Gaza and Israel’s willingness to use their ‘Hannibal’ option (whatever it’s called now), it’s a fair bet a number of the prisoners are already dead from US-supplied bombs and/or missiles.
Israel has killed at least 50 with their bombing runs. Apache helicopters, tanks, IDF “sharp shooters” in a fire fight mowed down some of the Israeli civilians on 7Oct23. Hannibal Directive solidly in place. Perhaps Samson Directive if things go badly for the Zionists. Tactical nuke against Iran?
Its an excellent bet that Hamas has killed hostages.
god damnit the world sucks and there should be a soundtrack to the suck of the world. here is the first entry =
another 40,000 coming every day
A few weeks ago a pundit predicted that Netanyahu is determined to maintain a 10 to 1 ratio of Palestinian to Israeli fatalities before declaring an inevitable ceasefire that the world is demanding. I suspect the “minor issue” arose after Israel lowered its casualty estimate of the October 7th fatalities in the Hamas attacks to 1,200 from the initial estimate of 1,400. Apparently the US and the Qataris thought the IDF would be willing to pause after killing 12,000 Palestinians. But it appears Netanyahu is sticking to his earlier insistence on killing 14,000 Palestinians before “pausing.”
I expect that once there is a “pause” Netanyahu and his lunatic cabinet will maneuver to (i) get US boots on the ground in Gaza as “peacekeepers” under Israeli control since neither Israel nor the PLO has the muscle to effectively occupy Gaza on a long term basis and (ii) the Israelis will try to get the US involved in a war against Iran that the right wing Zionists fervently want but cannot fight themselves.