Hamas rejected Israel’s latest offer for a ceasefire. However, they said they’d continue talking. Bargaining with terrorists is a bad idea.
The Hamas Demands
- Before agreeing to an initial, short-term ceasefire and partial hostage release, Hamas wants assurances that the eventual freeing of all the hostages will bring the end of Israel’s offensive and its full withdrawal from Gaza, the AP reports.
- The rejected Israel proposal included a 40-day truce in return for the release of hostages and the prospect of displaced families being allowed back to northern Gaza.
- It reportedly also involved new wording on restoring calm to satisfy Hamas’s demand for a permanent ceasefire – surrender.
- On Saturday, Axios cited Israeli officials as saying the proposal included a willingness for the return of people to northern Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the east-west corridor that divides the territory and prevents freedom of movement.
- It also included a willingness to “discuss the establishment of a sustainable ceasefire as part of the implementation of the second phase of the deal,” the officials said.
- Israeli officials and a diplomat meanwhile told the New York Times and Financial Times on Monday that Israel was also prepared to reduce the number of hostages released during the first phase to 33, down from 40.
Israel Plans to Attack Rafah
Israel has offered only a pause, after which it would resume its offensives until Hamas is destroyed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to attack Rafah in talks with Blinken on Wednesday.
Blinken put pressure on Hamas, saying it would bear the blame for any failure to get a deal.
“We are determined to get a cease-fire that brings the hostages home and to get it now, and the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” Blinken told Israel’s ceremonial President Isaac Herzog at a meeting in Tel Aviv.
“There is a proposal on the table, and as we’ve said, no delays, no excuses. The time is now,” he said.
Obviously, they didn’t care what Blinken said.
Bowing to U.S. pressure to increase aid deliveries, Israel re-opened its Erez crossing into the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday for the first time since it was damaged in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Evacuating Before the Attack
Blinken said that before Netanyahu attacks Rafah, he must first evacuate all the civilians. That sounds impossible. Oh, but that’s what we did in Germany when we started bombing them, right? Ohh, no wait…
This is an interesting way to conduct a war.
Hamas wants the eventual freeing of all the hostages in exchange for the end of Israel’s offensive and its full withdrawal from Gaza as the second part of the deal.
Israel has offered only a pause, after which it would resume its offensives until Hamas is destroyed.
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Negotiate with murderers that can’t possibly defeat you on the battlefield of their own making? Why????? Finish them! War is brutal, but nothing is settled until the the attackers are totally defeated. Victory is the true pathway to lasting lessons and real peace. Coexistence with Hamas isn’t possible. Give them nothing except more hot lead. They’re surrounded, desperate and dying in droves. Too bad!
This offer includes “after a pause we will level the rest of your land” clause.
The real story should be Israel suggests a plan that no one would or should agree to.
Exactly! Israel should not agree to any ceasefire since it will only strengthen the terrorists. It appears your belief is to coddle barbaric terrorists who rape women before and after death, cut off breasts, put babies in microwaves, and burn others alive.
“The Prisoner” – Sinwar’s spokesman. Parroting his reported sentiments.
Trump’s position is a thoughtful one on this situation. He brings properly into question what happened on 10/7. He also questions Bibi’s suspicious behavior. So now all of you “Israel can do no wrong” people, you fake MAGA, you Haley/neocon camp people, have to reconcile yourselves. So, come on now, Christian neocons, Israel Firsters, jump off the Trump train:
President Donald Trump said that Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7,” according to Time, which noted that the transcript of Trump’s remarks had been “lightly edited.”
Terrorists perpetrated horrific atrocities, slaughtering, raping, and kidnapping people on October 7 last year.
“I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump said, according to the outlet. “And it had to do with Soleimani, because as you probably know by now, he dropped out just before the attack. And I said, ‘What’s that all about?’ Because that was going to be a joint and all of a sudden, we were told that Israel was not doing it. And I was not happy about that. That was something I never forgot. And it showed me something.”
During Trump’s White House tenure, the U.S. announced that it had killed Qasem Soleimani. A Pentagon press release described the man as “the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.”
“I would say that what happened on—the October 7 should have never happened,” Trump said, according to Time. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee said, “People said that shouldn’t have happened. They have the most sophisticated equipment. They had—everything was there to stop that. And a lot of people knew about it, you know, thousands and thousands of people knew about it, but Israel didn’t know about it, and I think he’s being blamed for that very strongly, being blamed.”
You know so little of History, let alone the region. You have proved that on numerous occasions, not knowing the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah. The Jewish State has faced annihilation from the beginning. Something that anyone in the US, including Presidents, are incapable of understanding. There isn’t the danger facing this country by its neighbors. Rather than a few cartel gangs at the border, it would be more like the entire country of Mexico being Cartel.
One thing you missed is his realization that any “two-state” solution is essentially dead. As one opinion writer noted:
“Lest Trump’s words be obscured behind his trademark awkward syntax, the presumed Republican nominee has demonstrated once again that his instincts are far more often on target than those of the State Department, world diplomats, and the tendentious journalists who have clung to the two-state illusion for more than two decades. In the process, they have weakened Israel, harmed American interests, and destabilized the region.
…support for Israel is unequivocal and its repudiation of the two-state illusion aligns with the overwhelming majority of Israelis today, chastened and sobered as we were by the Hamas massacre of October 7. Those who persist in talking about two states living side by side are not only rewarding the Arab invaders, marauders, rapists, decapitators, and kidnappers of that awful day; they are also romanticizing a particularly vicious enemy and laying the foundation for future massacres.”
These negotiations are dumber than the those of the War of the Potato Faces in Eastern Europe. Israel’s announced end state is the total destruction of the Hamsters, and the Hamsters’ end state is, “Israel go home so we can rebuild and attack you again later.” Both sides really suck at gaslighting!
Treat Rafah, like the British Royal Air Force and America Army Air Force treated Dresden during WW II.
There was no legitimate military reason to firebomb Dresden. We can see that you support innocent deaths.
The terrorists, started the war with a barbaric attack on innocent civilians. They raped, murdered, kidnapped, and beheaded men women and children. They, like their Nazi predecessors are the embodiment of evil on this earth. That you can find any sympathy for these animals, is proof your concern for “innocent lives” may not always include innocent Jews.
There was a ‘ceasefire’ on Oct. 6th, and many in those kibbutzim who were slaughtered were the ones who supported those people, giving them work, taking them to Israeli hospitals. They were repaid with horrific deaths. One of the horrific murdered women was one who started an organization to support their cause. What did that support get her, by those innocent.
Innocent??? What do you know of innocents.