While mediation efforts led by Qatar, the United States and Egypt have so far run up against the demands of both sides, the war threatens to take on a regional dimension with daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, which saw a sudden intensification on Thursday.
Key information to remember
⇒ Ceasefire talks continue in Gaza
⇒ West Bank: Israeli raid leaves seven dead, including five Hamas members
⇒ Rocket salvos were fired from northern Lebanon by Hezbollah
Israel announces continuation of ceasefire talks
Israel said on Friday, July 5, that “gaps” remained to be filled in talks on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a deal to release the hostages, but that it would send a delegation “next week” to continue talks with Qatari mediators.
After the return to Israel on Friday evening of the head of Israeli intelligence, David Barnea, who met in Doha with Qatari officials, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that “a team will leave next week to continue negotiations” in Qatar.
West Bank: Israeli raid kills seven, including five Hamas members
Hamas announced in a statement Friday that five of its men had been killed “by gunfire” in the Jenin refugee camp. The Israeli army said, for its part, that it had carried out an “anti-terrorist operation” in this area in the north of the West Bank, occupied since 1967.
The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry reported a total of seven deaths, aged between 19 and 54. According to the ministry’s data, twelve Palestinians were killed in the past forty-eight hours in the West Bank. In addition to this toll, a child and a woman were killed on Monday, July 1, during an Israeli incursion into the Tulkarem region, also in the north of the territory. The Israeli army said it had conducted an operation to identify “terrorists responsible for the attack on soldiers.” “During the anti-terrorist operation, exchanges of fire took place with terrorists in the area,” it said in a statement. It added that it had targeted an “armed terrorist cell” with an “airstrike.”
Hezbollah says it launched salvos of rockets into northern Israel
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched several salvos of rockets at northern Israel on Friday night, a day after a sharp escalation in cross-border violence that has raised fears of renewed conflict in the region. In separate statements on Friday, Hezbollah said it had launched “salvos of Katyusha-type rockets” at the farming village of Margaliot and two border military positions in retaliation for “enemy attacks on villages and homes in the south.”
The Israeli military said in a statement that two of its soldiers were lightly wounded “by projectiles fired toward the border town of Kiryat Shmona,” adding that they were taken to hospital. It said it struck “the source of the launches” in response and fired artillery at several areas in southern Lebanon. The United Nations on Friday again expressed concern that the war in Gaza could spread to Lebanon, saying it was “deeply concerned by the increased intensity of the exchange of fire” the previous day, “which increases the risk of a full-scale war.”
Biden and Netanyahu “will probably meet” in Washington at the end of July
US President Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu “will probably see each other when the prime minister” of Israel is in Washington in late July, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday, without giving further details. The Israeli leader has been invited to address the US Congress on July 24. The two men, whose relationship is notoriously complicated, spoke on the phone Thursday about ongoing negotiations on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by a release of the hostages.
WHO warns of fuel shortage in Gaza for health services
The WHO chief warned that the fuel shortage posed a “catastrophic” risk to Gaza’s health system, already strained by the war raging in the Palestinian territory. “Only 90,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza yesterday (Wednesday),” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on the social network X on Thursday evening. The health sector alone needs 80,000 liters per day “which forces the UN – including the WHO – and their partners to make impossible choices,” he said.
New British Foreign Secretary backs ‘immediate’ Gaza ceasefire
David Lammy, who was appointed as foreign minister after Labour won the British general election, said he would “get down to business” […] to support an immediate ceasefire (in Gaza) and to get the hostages out,” in his first speech after his appointment on Friday, thus continuing the work of his predecessor. “I will do everything in my power diplomatically to help Joe Biden achieve this ceasefire,” he added from the Foreign Office. The policy of the new British Labour government is expected to be in line with the Conservatives’ position on the war between Israel and Gaza.