US President Joe Biden's initiative for a truce in Gaza has accumulated positive reactions on more than one level and it received an initial response from the Hamas movement.
Experts believe that reaching a truce in Gaza may be a “possibility” before the advent of Eid al-Adha (current June 16), if Israel accepts.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned in a press conference that the region would be exposed to “chaos” if the war continued, and stressed that “the current proposal regarding a ceasefire in Gaza deserves to be accepted.
According to an Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement, this was preceded by telephone discussions with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, which focused on ceasefire efforts in Gaza, and declarations about “Egypt constant contacts with all parties to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.”
On the other hand, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying: “We can stop the war for 42 days with the aim of recovering the detainees, but we will not give up absolute victory,” noting that “the swap deal proposal includes other details that have not been revealed.”
Israeli media also quoted Netanyahu as saying that the first phase of the plan promoted by the United States to end the war in Gaza, which includes the release of a limited number of hostages held by the Hamas movement, “can be implemented without agreeing on all the conditions for the subsequent phases."
American president, Joe Biden, whose country is considered a mediator in the truce negotiations in Gaza, recently announced that Israel had presented a three-stage proposal to end the war in Gaza, and called on Hamas, to which Washington submitted the proposal via Qatar, to accept the agreement, stressing that “the time for the end of the Gaza war has come.”
The first phase of the proposal included a ceasefire, the release of a number of hostages, and a limited Israeli withdrawal, to be followed by a second phase that included the release of all hostages, a complete Israeli withdrawal, and finally reconstruction, and the handover of the bodies of the dead hostages.
Hours after the speech, Hamas responded to the proposal and said that it “considers positively what was included in it”, while a joint statement was issued by the three mediators calling on the two parties to conclude an agreement.
An official of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in an interview that the situation in general is “ambiguous" and explaining that “no discussions were launched in light of maneuvers and division in Israel regarding the truce proposal.” He believes that the truce will not reach a “breakthrough” as long as the Israeli position continues, ruling out that Washington’s pressure will achieve “positive points for Tel Aviv in this regard.”
On the other hand, Arab political analysts said that “Biden’s proposal comes in light of previous initiatives and tours between Paris, Cairo, and Doha, but it will clash with Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing the war.” They believe that “Netanyahu does not have the courage to sign this agreement, and if he signed it, he would be threatened with persecution and the fall of his government the next day. Therefore, he does not want a truce that stops the war, but only the release of the hostages.”
However, the same analysts recalled and expressed optimism “about the possibility of achieving a truce on the next Eid al-Adha, in light of the efforts of the mediators, despite the problem of the lack of convergence of demands, and the Biden’s keenness to present it as an initiative for electoral purposes.”