Truce talkslimp on but US hopeful

AFP | Jerusalem

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Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.

The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages. In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Yunis in the south.

One strike on a tent in Khan Yunis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.

Belal al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death”.

AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.

Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“Gaza -- we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4. A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.

In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement”.

Pressure

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbours.

But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied mediareports that any meeting betweenthe two was on the agenda.

In Israel, Netanyahu has said hewould be ready to enter talks for amore lasting ceasefire when a dealfor a temporary truce is agreedand only when Hamas lays downits weapons.

But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and withpublic frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostagesand a perceived lack of progressin the conflict.

Politically, his fragile governingcoalition is holding, for now, butNetanyahu is seen as beholden toa minority of far-right ministers inprolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.