Mideast Talks Extended as Washington Sees Progress, but Will Israel Be Pushed Too Far?

Eager to keep the Mideast calm in the run-up to the November election, America is pushing a “bridging” formula to end the Gaza war, release hostages, and, hopefully, prevent a region-wide conflagration. Will this, though, force Israel to further compromise on red lines?Touted as a “last chance,” a two-day round of negotiations at Doha was suspended Friday, as the parties vowed to reconvene next week. Indicating that differences are narrowing, Washington is presenting a roadmap to close the remaining gaps.Secretary Blinken, after canceling a trip to the region last week for fear of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack, plans to land in Israel Sunday. A White House envoy, Amos Hochstein, was at Beirut this week, attempting to convince Hezbollah to retreat from Israel’s northern border. The new proposal at Doha “builds on areas of agreement over the past week, and bridges remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal,” America, Qatar, and Egypt said in a joint statement Friday, vowing to meet at Cairo next week. President Biden sounded encouraged Friday. “We are closer to a deal than we have ever been,” he told reporters at the White House Friday. While he didn’t want to “jinx” a deal, he added, “We are not there yet, but we are closer than we were three days ago.”The Biden administration has claimed to be “making progress on these talks for about four or five months now,” a former national security adviser, John Bolton, told Bloomberg Friday. “They never seem to get to the finish line. I think there are still enormous gaps between the Israeli position and the Hamas position.”Hamas representatives declined to participate in the Doha talks and quickly rejected Washington’s bridging proposal. Mr. Biden is attempting to create a “false positive atmosphere,” a senior Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said Friday, adding that Washington is trying to “buy time,” and has no intention of stopping the war. A salvo of five Hamas rockets fell on southern Israel Friday following a rare attempt to hit Tel Aviv earlier this week. One projectile landed inside the Gaza Strip, while a second hit waters near a Tel Aviv beach. No damage was reported. The Israel Defense Force determined the rockets were launched from inside a humanitarian safe zone in central Gaza, and urged its residents to relocate to another safe zone as it eliminates the danger. The Israeli negotiating team at Doha, headed by the Mossad chief, David Barnea, seemed encouraged by progress in the talks. Yet, according to a report on the popular Israeli website Ynet, some unresolved issues are not addressed in the American bridging proposal. Following the IDF capture of Gaza’s border with Egypt, an area that has long enabled Hamas to rearm, Prime Minister Netanyahu has demanded that Israel maintain a presence there. At Doha, Israel reportedly agreed to a lower-level presence at that area, known as the Philadelphi corridor, but not to completely remove its forces, as Hamas and Egypt demand. Israel also demands IDF presence in central Gaza, to ensure that no armed Hamas operators travel to the northern part of the Strip. Israel is attempting to prevent terrorists from traveling alongside civilians returning home from Southern Gaza humanitarian zones, according to the proposed deal. Israel also demands to receive a list of living abductees prior to the deal’s first phase, in which Hamas is to release 32 of the 115 hostages it still holds. Implementation of phases two and three of the deal are widely in doubt, and Hamas previously indicated it might include some dead bodies in the first phase.Israelis were horrified by an unverified Hamas claim that an unidentified male hostage was executed at Gaza this week while two females were critically injured. Many cite the reported incident in arguing that Mr. Netanyahu must finalize a deal quickly, and at almost any cost, to release as many hostages as possible. Hinting that he agreed, the IDF chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, indicated during a visit to the Philadelphi corridor this week that the army would be able to secure Gaza’s critical border even without a physical presence there.That statement was a “major error” that could weaken the Israeli negotiation stance at Doha, a centrist military analyst with deep IDF ties, Amir Bohbot, writes on a Hebrew-language website, Walla. “Many top IDF commanders disagree” with General Halevi and insist on physical presence at the Philadelphi corridor, he adds. Even as negotiators insist that Gaza cease-fire talks reduce the prospects of Iranian or Hezbollah attacks, which could ignite a regional war, Washington and Tel Aviv warn that such attacks could be launched at any time.“The Americans think they can get to a deal in Gaza, that Hochstein can get a deal in Lebanon, and then the region would calm,” a skeptical former IDF major general, Gershon Hacohen, told Kan news Friday. “They are missing the mark.”

Mideast Talks Extended as Washington Sees Progress, but Will Israel Be Pushed Too Far?

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