Sean Matthews
Middle East Eye / August 23, 2024
White House says negotiations are progressing, but shifting positions from US and Israel have forced a Hamas boycott.
The Biden administration rebuked sceptics of its efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza on Friday, saying a flurry of media leaks suggesting that negotiations had all but collapsed were “inaccurate”.
“The process is moving forward in the way we had outlined,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “There has been progress made. We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation.”
Kirby said ongoing talks in Cairo had been “constructive”. He confirmed two of the White House’s top negotiators, CIA director Bill Burns and top Middle East advisor Brett McGurk, were in Egypt’s capital.
The officials met with Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel, as the fate of the border between Egypt and Gaza emerges as the latest stumbling block to a ceasefire deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel maintain control of the border area called the Philadelphi Corridor, putting Israel at odds with both Hamas and Egypt.
The former sees Netanyahu’s demand as a reversal after months of grueling negotiations which have centred on the framework of a three-stage ceasefire deal that President Biden outlined in May, which included an eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egypt says the deployment of Israeli troops violates its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which limits the type and amount of military hardware each side can deploy at the border.
Philadelphi Corridor
Control of the corridor is crucial to all the parties because before 7 October when the war broke out after the Hamas-led attack on souther Israel, the Rafah border crossing was Gaza’s only lifeline to the outside world. Various plans for post-war Gaza have envisioned the crossing being managed by Palestinian Authority security forces or international troops.
Israel’s seizure of Rafah in May put an even tighter chokehold on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. The UN says the besieged enclave is home to the world’s worst hunger crisis in the world, and swaths of Palestinians there now face famine, according to the UN.
Israel says it wants to control the crossing to prevent Hamas from rearming. Israeli officials and some US lawmakers say Egypt failed to stop the flow of arms before 7 October.
MEE reported that Egypt’s intelligence and military apparatus may be weighing a compromise on control of the corridor. But Egypt’s powerful military has been riven with resentment and mistrust towards Israel and the US since the seizure of Rafah. It’s unclear if Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would back down from opposing Israeli troops.
On Friday, Israel’s Walla news site reported that Biden asked Netanyahu to withdraw some Israeli troops from a section of the corridor in the first phase of a ceasefire.
Hamas rejects Israeli conditions
Israel also wants to keep troops along the Netzarim Corridor, which its military cut through in the middle of Gaza.
The New York Times says Israel insists on the right to screen Palestinians returning to their homes in the north for weapons. MEE previously revealed how Israel wants to create a ring of checkpoints around Gaza.
Hamas told MEE that it “categorically rejects Netanyahu’s conditions”, saying they are proof that Netanyahu is not serious about a ceasefire.
The group has not sent officials to Cairo where Egyptian, Qatari, US, and Israeli officials are deliberating.
Netanyahu is under pressure from the security establishment and hostage family members to reach a deal, but his political fortunes appear on the upswing, according to recent Israeli polls.
Netanyahu dramatically snatched attention away from Israel’s grueling offensive inside Gaza and its tit-for-tat border conflict with Hezbollah.
He ordered the successful assassinations of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut.
‘Nothing for granted’
Iran and Hezbollah vowed to retaliate, but analysts say the brazen attacks appear to have knocked Tehran and its so-called “axis of resistance” off their feet, and there are signs Tehran is trying to dodge a response.
Asked about the delay, Kirby replied, “We aren’t taking anything for granted”.
He noted the US’s beefed-up deployment of military forces in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine and two aircraft carriers, one loaded with F-35s.
Last week, the US also approved a $20bn arms package for Israel, although most weapons won’t arrive for years.
Arab and US officials want a ceasefire to de-escalate tensions, but if Netanyahu feels he has the wind at his back, he may not feel pressure to compromise. Some Iran hawks in Israel and the US have already said that killing Haniyeh and Shukr validates Netanyahu’s war strategy.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, with 90 percent of the besieged enclaves residents displaced and at least 40,265 killed, mainly women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.
Meanwhile, Israel’s continued offensive is forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to face repeat displacement. This week, Israel ordered a new ejection of Palestinians from a “humanitarian safe zone” in the small Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza.
Sean Mathews is a journalist for Middle East Eye writing about business, security and politics
