GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Aug 8, 2024 Agence France Presse: Israel has agreed to resume ceasefire talks in Gaza on August 15 at the request of US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Thursday, as that regional tensions are growing rapidly. the war.
Gaza's civil defense agency, controlled by Hamas, said Israeli shelling killed more than 18 people in strikes on two schools on Thursday, as Iran accused Israel of seeking to spread the war across the Middle East.
After a week-long hiatus in November, US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators struggled to secure a second truce in the 10-month war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
In a joint statement on Thursday, the leaders of the three countries invited the warring parties to resume talks on August 15 in Doha or Cairo “to close all remaining gaps and start implementing the agreement without delay”.
A framework agreement was “now on the table with only the implementation details” remaining to be concluded, and mediators were “ready to present a final bridging proposal” to resolve the remaining issues, they said.
Netanyahu's office said later Thursday that Israel would send a negotiating team on August 15 “to the agreed location to finalize the details of the implementation of an agreement.”
A possible cessation of hostilities, which also involves the release of hostages held in Gaza and expanded aid deliveries, has focused on a phased agreement, starting with an initial ceasefire.
Recent talks have focused on a framework outlined by US President Joe Biden in late May, which he said was proposed by Israel.
“It's not like the deal will be ready to be signed on Thursday. There is still a significant amount of work to be done,” a senior Biden administration official said of the talks that follow calls between Biden and the Egyptian and Qatari leaders this week.
Israel was “very receptive” to the idea of talks, the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity, dismissing suggestions that Netanyahu was stalling on a deal.
The announcement of the talks came after Hamas named Yahya Sinwar — the alleged mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack — as its new leader, sparking fears that the grueling negotiations have become even more difficult.
On the ground in Gaza, the Hamas-controlled civil defense agency said Israeli strikes hit the Al-Zahra and Abdel Fattah Hamoud schools in Gaza City, killing more than 18 people.
Senior agency official Mohammad Al-Mughayyir said 60 people were injured and more than 40 were still missing.
“This is a clear targeting of schools and secure civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
The Israeli military said the schools housed Hamas command centers.
At least 13 people were killed elsewhere in Gaza, rescuers and medics reported, as the Israeli military issued the latest evacuation order for parts of the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
Diplomats have been working to defuse tensions in the region, which have run high since the killing of two top militant leaders in attacks blamed on Israel that the militants and their Iranian backers have vowed to avenge.
Iran's acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, told AFP that Israel had made “a strategic mistake” by killing Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, hours after the military chief's assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah.
Although Israel has not admitted killing Haniyeh, Iran and its allies have vowed to retaliate.
Israel seeks to “expand tension, war and conflict to other countries” but has neither the “capacity nor the power” to fight Iran, Bagheri said.
Netanyahu, speaking at a military base on Wednesday, said Israel was “prepared both defensively and offensively” and “determined” to defend itself.
Officials in the Middle East and beyond have called for calm, and Britain's international development minister, Anneliese Dodds, told AFP on a visit to Jordan: “We need to see a de-escalation.”
The United States, which has sent warships and additional aircraft to the region, has called on both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday and later to Israel's Netanyahu, telling both to “avoid a cycle of reprisals,” according to the French presidency.
The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip has already drawn Tehran-aligned militants from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Hamas's Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which has exchanged almost daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops during the Gaza war, has vowed revenge for the killing of military chief Fuad Shukr.
The unprecedented attack by Hamas that started the Gaza war has killed 1,198 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Palestinian militants captured 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which did not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Netanyahu, who has resisted apologizing for security failures in the wake of Israel's worst attack, said in an interview published Thursday that he was “deeply sorry that something like this happened.”
“You always look back and say, 'Could we have done things that would have prevented it?'” Netanyahu told Time magazine.
