New round of talks for a truce in the Gaza Strip. The main obstacle to reaching an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages seems to be the refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw soldiers from the ‘Philadelphi Route’, the 14-kilometer ‘corridor’ that runs along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. This was indicated by Israeli sources cited by Maariv, while a new round of negotiations with Egypt, the US and Israel is scheduled for this evening in Cairo.
Israel’s New Proposal
The head of the Shin Bet, the head of the Mossad and the head of the IDF’s strategic division, General Eliezer Toledano, have arrived in Cairo to try to bridge the gap on the ‘corridor’. The Israeli delegation is said to have arrived in Cairo with a new proposal that would include the possibility of a permanent presence of a United Nations observer mission at several fixed points on the ‘Philadelphi Route’, the Qatari daily ‘Al-Araby Al-Jadeed’ reports. The agreement, the newspaper writes, “would include the presence of another EU delegation at the Rafah crossing together with representatives of the Palestinian Authority to manage and restart the crossing”. Again according to ‘Al-Araby Al-Jadeed’ “the proposal does not include an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army from the crossing” but would include “a gradual withdrawal from the border”.
Egypt to US: “Guarantees that Israel will not remain along the ‘Philadelphi Route'”
Egypt, which has repeatedly said it rejects any permanent or long-term Israeli deployment on the Palestinian side of its border with Gaza, has asked the United States for specific guarantees regarding the Philadelphia Corridor, namely that if Israeli soldiers leave the Route in the first phase of the deal, they will not return in subsequent phases, Egyptian officials told the Wall Street Journal, explaining that Israeli negotiators recently proposed building eight observation towers along the axis. The United States has tried to offer concessions under which only two towers would be placed, but Egypt has rejected both proposals on the grounds that each watchtower allows the IDF permanent presence and access.
Seven hostages are believed to be still being held by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian faction allied with Hamas that operates in the Gaza Strip. The London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported, recalling that on October 8, the day after the massacre carried out by Hamas in southern Israel, the group’s leader, Ziyad Nakhaleh, declared that Islamic Jihad had more than 30 of the 251 hostages taken to Gaza. Some of them were released as part of the agreement that led to a week-long truce in November, the newspaper notes, according to which it is not clear whether any of the hostages held by Islamic Jihad have died.
Asharq al-Awsat also reported that cooperation between Hamas and Islamic Jihad has strengthened following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month, not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank, as evidenced by the failed suicide bombing by a Nablus resident in Tel Aviv last Sunday, which was claimed by both groups.
“Bullets Found in Bodies of Hostages Recovered in Gaza”
While bullets were found inside the bodies of some of the hostages who were rescued in recent days by the IDF in the Gaza Strip. Israeli media wrote this without naming the hostages in question, but stressing that they were probably killed by their captors. The mother of hostage Yagev Buchshtav, 35, told Kan radio that a bullet was found in her son’s body.
The bodies recovered in Khan Younis are, in addition to that of Buchshtav, those of Alex Dancyg, Chaim Peri, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Avraham Munder.
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