Hope springs as US and Qatar push for six-week truce deal ‘within days’

AFP | Jerusalem                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Mediator Qatar said yesterday it was “hopeful” a new truce between Israel and Hamas could be secured within days, after US President Joe Biden said a ceasefire could start next week and last through Ramadan.

As a dire humanitarian crisis unfolds in the war-battered Gaza Strip, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA and the US separately called to ensure aid reaches the many Palestinians in need.

In the protracted bid to broker a ceasefire nearly five months into the devastating war, Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been putting proposals to the parties. Negotiators are seeking a six-week halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war.

Several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel may also be released under the deal, media reports suggest.

“My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire but we’re not done yet,” Biden said. Qatar’s Amir, Shaikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani - whose country hosts Hamas’s political leadership and helped broker a one-week truce in November - met in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Doha was “hopeful, not necessarily optimistic, that we can announce something” before Thursday.

“We are going to push for a pause before the beginning of Ramadan”, the Muslim fasting month which starts on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar, Ansari said. “We are all aiming towards that target, but the situation is still fluid on the ground.”