DOHA (AFP) – Pressure built for a Gaza ceasefire to be agreed at talks that resumed yesterday in Qatar, aiming to stop the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said has killed 40,000.
A source with knowledge of the talks confirmed to AFP that they had begun in the Qatari capital Doha.
The source did not disclose whether Hamas had dispatched any delegates to the talks which Israel and CIA director William Burns planned to attend.
In a veiled warning to Iran, Hamas and Israel ahead of the meetings, United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said “no party in the region should take actions that would undermine efforts to reach a deal”, the US State Department said.
In a telephone call, the two discussed “efforts to calm” regional tensions “and the importance of finalising a ceasefire in Gaza”, it said.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators invited Israel and Hamas for negotiations focused on ending the war that the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza yesterday said has killed 40,005 people in the coastal territory.
The ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties, said the toll included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
In Beirut on Wednesday, visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said he and Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri agreed “there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay”.
Berri is an ally of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement which has exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces in what Hezbollah said is support for Hamas. Hochstein said a deal in Gaza “would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war”.
He added, “We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”
A similar message came on Monday from France, Germany and Britain which jointly said there can be “no further delay” in reaching a Gaza truce. They urged Iran and its allies not to “further escalate” regional tensions. Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since a week-long truce in November when militants released dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
One of the Palestinians freed at that time was among two people killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank yesterday, Palestinian sources said.
Israel’s military said a strike killed two armed militants. Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel have said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.
Israeli media this week quoted Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling… in part because of Israel”.
