Israel is reported to be close to accepting a six-week ceasefire proposal for Gaza, a senior Biden administration official told several US news outlets on Saturday, two days after more than 100 Palestinians died while attempting to access aid trucks in the territory.
The official said that there is a “framework deal” and Israel has “more or less accepted” a ceasefire to allow for the release of Hamas-held hostages in Gaza and to allow aid into the territory that has been devastated by four months of bombardment, killing more than 30,000 people.
However, the official said that Hamas has not yet agreed to a “defined category of vulnerable hostages” – a sticking point to an agreement. Israel has reportedly said that ceasefire talks would not continue until Hamas presents a list of the hostages, including who is alive and who is dead.
The official added that a second phase “to build something more enduring” would be worked out during the initial ceasefire.
This article is pointless for two reasons:
As long as Netanyahu keeps saying that a Rafah massacre is coming no matter what, any time-limited ceasefire is essentially worthless and Hamas knows that.
There’s no indication of whether Hamas is likely to agree to any version of the deal, making the acceptance of Israel completely irrelevant at this point.
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the purpose of this is not to inform, but to feed the “Israeli government wants peace but Hamas don’t” narrative even though it’s clear to any unbiased observer that neither party actually do.
Edit: YEP! Called it.
Before claiming that neither party wants peace, I think it’s worth asking yourself what peace is. Is it the absence of overt violence, or is it the presence of justice.
On the rest, I agree.
Palestinian civilians want justice. Israeli civilians want an absence of overt violence. The Israeli government and Hamas both want neither.
Pretty sure that isn’t true for a significant portion of them who are applauding genocide and the apartheid that preceded it.