Mediators are still struggling this Tuesday, March 5, to find a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas before Ramadan, which will begin on March 10. While the bombings continue to cause thousands of civilian victims in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Information to remember
⇒ Negotiations continue in Cairo to find a truce agreement
⇒ The towns of Rafah and Khan Younes, which are home to many civilians, were again bombed during the night
⇒ Hamas announces new death toll of 30,631
Find a truce agreement before Ramadan
Negotiations between Hamas and international mediators continue Tuesday March 5 in Cairo in the hope of reaching a truce in the Gaza Strip after almost five months of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement. The Egyptian, American and Qatari mediators are trying to extract a compromise from the two camps, in order to obtain a truce agreement before the start on March 10 or 11 of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims. Such an agreement would notably allow the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardments again targeted besieged Palestinian territory overnight, including the towns of Rafah and Khan Younes in the south, killing a total of 97 people in 24 hours, according to the Hamas Health Ministry. An assessment that no independent source is able to verify. To achieve “total victory”, Israel announced that it was preparing a ground offensive on Rafah, a town located in the far south of the Gaza Strip, against the closed border with Egypt, where there are massed troops, according to the UN , nearly a million and a half Palestinians in a desperate situation.
The terms of the negotiation
Hamas demands in particular, before any agreement, a definitive ceasefire and an Israeli military withdrawal from the territory. Israel rejects these conditions, saying it wants to continue its offensive until the elimination of Hamas. According to Israeli media, the government is demanding that Hamas provide it with a precise list of hostages held in Gaza and has not sent a delegation to Cairo, unlike Hamas, because this list has not been given to it.
A senior official in Hamas’s political leadership, Bassem Naim, on Tuesday accused Israel of blocking negotiations, in a statement to AFP, and asserted that “the ball (was) in the court” of the United States.
The United States expresses its concern
The United States, Israel’s main supporter, is increasingly demanding a ceasefire in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe that the war has caused in the Gaza Strip. American Vice President Kamala Harris told Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet and great political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday of her “deep concern” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
She “urged Israel to take measures” to increase the entry of aid into the territory threatened by famine but also “welcomed the constructive approach” of the Israeli authorities in the ongoing negotiations for a temporary cessation of hostilities triggered by the attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil.
Türkiye: seven suspected Israeli spies arrested
Seven new people suspected of spying for Israel have been arrested in Turkey, two months after a major raid, the official Turkish news agency Anadolu announced on Tuesday.
The suspects, including a private detective and civil servants, are accused of providing information on “Middle Eastern citizens and businesses” based in Turkey for payment, Anadolu says, citing security sources. 34 people suspected in particular of helping the Israeli intelligence services to prepare kidnappings on Turkish soil had already been arrested in early January across Turkey.
Belgium drops aid to Gaza
Belgium has sent a military plane loaded with humanitarian aid to be dropped over Gaza, as part of an international operation involving the United States, France and Jordan, Belgian officials said Monday.
The humanitarian aid will first be transported to Jordan where Jordanian officials will inspect it before it is dropped over the Palestinian territory, at the earliest on Wednesday, Colonel Bruno Beeckmans, commander, told AFP. from the Belgian air base at Melsbroek, near Brussels, where the plane took off. Jordan has already carried out 16 operations to drop humanitarian aid in Gaza since October 7, including one carried out by a French aircraft.