Is the Gaza ceasefire agreement “closer”, or perhaps further away, than ever before? This seems to be the question of the international community. The United States presented yesterday, Friday, after two days of negotiations in Doha, an amended proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, but Hamas immediately rejected the “new terms” which he argued is posing Israel, while intensifying diplomatic pressure aimed at avoiding a regional military escalation.

The mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – announced the resumption of talks next week in Cairo, after a new compromise was presented in Doha on Friday to implement a ceasefire agreement.

The deal “never been so close” assured US President Joe Biden, who spoke with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar.

The American president also called on all parties not to “undermine” the negotiations. “I think we have a chance,” Biden insisted to reporters, calling himself “optimistic.”

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is to travel to Israel today to seek to “make a deal” on the basis of the new proposal, according to the State Department. But two Hamas officials told AFP that their organization rejects Israel’s “new terms”.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, the war, which broke out with Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, has seen no respite and violence continues in the occupied West Bank, where a deadly attack by Jewish settlers has caused uproar.

After more than ten months of conflict, diplomatic efforts are also aimed at avoiding a response by Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, to the July 31 assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran, and in the death, the day before, of the military leader of the Islamist Lebanese movement from an Israeli strike near Beirut.

The Israeli prime minister called on mediators to “put pressure” on Hamas, while Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called for the opposite during a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister, “immediate and effective pressure” on Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli-French Foreign Ministry “squabble” over an “attack on Iran”

Welcoming his British counterparts David Lammy and French Stephane Cezournet in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he expects his allies to “unite with Israel”. to “attack Iran”, if Tehran attacks his country.

Sejournay characterized “indecent to talk about a response (…) even a defensive one” at a time when diplomatic efforts are in full swing.

Iran will suffer “catastrophic” consequences if it attacks Israel, a senior US official has warned from his homeland.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah released a video – the authenticity of which AFP could not confirm – showing its members moving through large tunnels, where trucks appear to be carrying large rockets. In one image, a rocket launcher is aimed skyward through a hatch.

In Doha, Hamas did not participate in the negotiationsin which the heads of the intelligence services of the USA and Israel took part together with the mediators, but he is informed about them.

Among the “new conditions” set by Israel and rejected by Hamas, one of the Palestinian organization’s officials mentioned the “maintenance of Israeli troops” along Gaza’s border with Egypt, as well as “a right of veto” on the release of some Palestinians prisoners.

The talks are based on a plan announced by Joe Biden on May 31, which initially calls for a six-week truce in which Israelis withdraw from densely populated Gaza and release Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians.

Ten Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike in the town of Zawayda in the center of the Gaza Strip, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported today.