There’s still no sign of any progress toward a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Unnamed Palestinian officials told BBC this morning that the talks in Doha between Israel and Hamas are on the verge of collapse. One senior official told BBC that Israel had “bought time” during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week and deliberately stalled the process by sending a delegation to Doha with no real authority to make decisions on key points of contention. Those points include the withdrawal of Israeli troops and humanitarian aid distribution.
The Times of Israel noted that Israel’s delegation to Doha does not include the senior-most officials who have been involved in talks—Mossad chief David Barnea, acting Shin Bet head “Shin,” and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Army Radio reported earlier this week.
Two Palestinian sources with knowledge of the discussions told AFP that the indirect negotiations are being held up by Israel’s proposals to keep troops in the Gaza Strip. “The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel’s insistence, as of Friday [July 11], on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment and repositioning of the Israeli army rather than a genuine withdrawal,” one source says. A second accuses Israel of “stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination.”
Two sources, one an Arab diplomat, told the Times of Israel yesterday that no significant progress has been made in the ongoing hostage negotiations in Doha since July 9 when Israeli negotiators presented new maps showing the buffer zones Israel wants to control in Gaza. The new maps still envision Israel maintaining control of roughly one-third of Gaza’s territory, including a 3 km (1.86-mile) buffer zone in Rafah where it aims to create a controversial “humanitarian city” to which Gaza’s entire population will be herded. Channel 12 reports that Hamas has agreed to expand the buffer zone Israel wants to create along much of the Gaza perimeter from 700 meters to 1 km, but Israel is still demanding that it be expanded to as much as 2 km.
