Peter Beaumont
The Guardian / August 21, 2024
Number of homes struck in Golan Heights, with one person wounded.
Hezbollah has launched more than 50 rockets and a swarm of drones towards northern Israel, hitting a number of homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and wounding one person.
The strikes on Wednesday by the Lebanese militant group came the day after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met mediators from Egypt and Qatar, even as Hamas and Israel poured cold water on any prospect of any imminent pause in the fighting in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the US president, Joe Biden, spoke to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by phone.
The White House said afterwards: “The president stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles.”
As more details emerged on Wednesday of a proposal meant to bridge gaps between Hamas and Israel, Egypt expressed skepticism about the positive noises being made by the US.
“The Americans are offering promises [regarding the ceasefire], not guarantees,” an official told the Associated Press. “Hamas won’t accept this, because it virtually means Hamas will release the civilian hostages in return for a six-week pause of fighting with no guarantees for a negotiated permanent ceasefire.”
The official also said the proposal did not clearly say Israel would withdraw its forces from the Philadelphi Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor, which runs east to west across the territory. “This is not acceptable for us and of course for Hamas,” he said.
Blinken’s efforts and initially positive comments, in the midst of a Democratic party convention that has drawn pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Chicago, appeared designed in part to demonstrate to skeptical voters that the Biden administration was making efforts to end the violence.
Relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have continued to accuse Netanyahu of attempting to undermine a ceasefire-for-hostages deal through his insistence that Israeli troops should remain in the Philadelphi Corridor.
That is one of several conditions that Hamas says Netanyahu has added to a previous draft agreement, making it unacceptable to Hamas. Netanyahu has denied the claim.
The left-leaning Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported comments by an anonymous official involved in the talks accusing Netanyahu of trying to “sabotage” any deal. The official said: “[Netanyahu’s] statements indicating that Israel would not withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border, at a time when sensitive negotiations are under way for finding a solution there, only make it more difficult to find a solution, increasing suspicions, signaling to Hamas and the mediators that Netanyahu is uninterested in a deal”.
What is clear is that Blinken’s latest effort has replicated previous rounds of talks, with the secretary of state once again appearing to emerge from meetings with the Israeli prime minister making optimistic comments that have been quickly shot down. Hamas called the latest proposal presented to it a “reversal” of what it had agreed to previously and accused the US of acquiescing to “new conditions” from Israel.
The Israeli assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, has continued in tandem with a conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon. Hezbollah considers an end to the conflict in Gaza a prerequisite to ceasing its own fighting.
Hezbollah said the attack on Wednesday was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one person and injured 19. Also on Tuesday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 projectiles towards Israel after Israel had targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot about 50 miles (80km) from the border, a significant increase in the daily skirmishes.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed it, saying it needed the strategic plateau for its security. The US is the only country to recognize the annexation, while the rest of the international community considers the area to be occupied Syrian territory.
Israel killed a senior member of the Palestinian Fatah movement in Lebanon on Wednesday, accusing him of having orchestrated attacks in the West Bank. In response, the Fatah party accused Israel of seeking to “ignite a regional war”. Khalil al-Maqdah was killed in a strike on his car in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to Fatah and a Lebanese security source.
The Israeli conflict with Hezbollah has killed nearly 600 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 130 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
A commercial ship travelling through the Red Sea came under repeated attack on Wednesday, leaving the vessel “not under command” and drifting ablaze after an assault suspected to have been carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the British military said.
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine
Agencies contributed to this report
