The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will have today conversations with the Israeli political leadershipwhich he is expected to press for a new ceasefire that would allow the release of more hostages, as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its fifth month.

Five months, five tours of the Middle East for the head of the State Department: yesterday he was in Egypt and Qatar, the two countries that have taken on a mediating role, before his plane arrived in Tel Aviv in the evening.

Hamas confirmed earlier yesterday that it had sent a responsewithout going into details about it, in Cairo and Doha, after reviewing the proposal for the new truce drawn up in late January in Paris, during negotiations involving CIA Director William Burns and representatives of his authorities Qatar, Egypt and Israel.

According to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Mr. Blinken was informed yesterday Tuesday of the response of Hamas by the Emir of Qatar when they met in Doha.

According to an AFP source in the Palestinian Islamist movement, the proposal envisages three phases, with the first including a six-week ceasefire, the release of 200 to 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages held in Gaza, as well as the entry into the enclave of 200 to 300 trucks of humanitarian aid daily.

The Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, he said he was “optimistic” and described Hamas’ response as “overall positive”, adding that it contains “certain comments”.

A joint statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad says that the Hamas response was “passed” by Qatar to Israel’s spy agency, which is “thoroughly studying it”.

Mr Netanyahu is expected to hold one-on-one talks with Mr Blinken today, exactly four months after the conflict broke out.

The trigger for this war was an unprecedented attack by Hamas’ military arm on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, which killed 1,163 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official statements from the authorities. .

Since then, retaliatory military operations by Israel — whose civilian-military leadership has vowed to “wipe out” Hamas — have claimed lives in the Gaza Strip at least 27,585 people, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the most recent casualty count released by the Hamas Health Ministry.

Concern for Rafa is intensifying

As the US Secretary of State’s plane landed in Tel Aviv, shelling and fighting raged less than a hundred kilometers to the south, mainly in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, eyewitnesses said.

Since the outbreak of war, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble by relentless Israeli shelling and at least 1.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

THE Rafaon the closed border with Egypt, a city of 270,000 inhabitants before the war, is now home to 1.3 million displaced from other sectors of the Gaza Strip, in other words more than half its population (2.4 million), according to the UN .

This city is expected to become the next target of the Israeli army. On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Galand — who is also expected to meet with Mr. Blinken today — said his forces would soon reach locations where they have not yet operated, “as the last stronghold of Hamas, that is Rafa”.

“THE Netanyahu threatens to invade Rafah under the pretext of the presence of Hamas (…) Israel will not stop until it has eliminated the people of Gaza,” fears Raed al-Bardani, a 32-year-old displaced person.

The possible “intensification of hostilities in Rafah could lead to large-scale civilian casualties. We must do everything in our power to prevent it,” Jens Lerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.

“A lot of work”

In late November, a week-long ceasefire allowed more aid to enter the Palestinian enclave and the release of more than 100 hostages out of the 250 taken to the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons — both side, it was mostly women and children.

Yesterday Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, announced that the families of 31 hostages still in the Gaza Strip have been informed that they are dead.

“There is still a lot of work to be done” to agree on a new truce, “but we continue to believe that it is possible and necessary” and “we will continue to work non-stop to reach it”, the US Secretary of State assured yesterday.

According to him, the draft agreement drawn up at the end of January in Paris “offers the prospect of prolonged calm, the release of hostages and an increase in aid” to the Gaza Strip, which is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis. That “would clearly be favorable to the whole world,” he added.

Up to now, the Hamas leadership deserved a complete ceasefire. The government of Israel rejects the possibility, announcing that the military operations will not end until after the Palestinian Islamist movement is “eliminated” and the hostages are released.

“We are on the road to total victory and we will not stop. This position is shared by the vast majority of the population,” Mr. Netanyahu insisted yesterday.

Beyond the Gaza Strip, tensions remain high in the region between Israel and its allies on the one hand and Iran and the “axis of resistance” on the other, which includes, in addition to Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, paramilitary organizations in Iraq and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.

Last Tuesday night, the Israeli military claimed to have obtained documents which it says “prove” the transfer of 154 million US dollars from Iran to Hamas in the period 2014-2020.

While overnight, Israeli shelling in Syria’s Homs province killed five people, including three civilians, according to the non-governmental organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.