Response

The statement by Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelati that negotiating contacts will continue in Cairo tomorrow and the day after Friday is essentially the only optimistic development in the climate of the optimistic echo left by the conference in Doha a week ago – an echo mainly due to estimates and statements of the American side. Characteristic of the contradictory climate prevailing in the last twenty-four hours is that Abdelati’s statements have not yet been confirmed by the Israelis or by the entourage of the American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who arrived in Qatar on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Blinken’s statement yesterday that Netanyahu has accepted the revised American proposal, which has been implied to provide for the gradual reduction of Israel’s military presence in the Philadelphia Axis on the Gaza-Egypt border, caused embarrassment in Israel, resulting in Benjamin Netanyahu deems it appropriate, indirectly but not clearly, to assure the opposite. Speaking to representatives of the families of the hostages, the Israeli prime minister assured that Israel “will never abandon either the Philadelphia Axis or the Netzarim Line, which divides the Gaza Strip into northern and southern parts, in order to prevent the resettlement of its nuclei of the Hamas organization in the areas that served as a base against Israeli border settlements on the morning of October 7. The dichotomy observed between Israel and the Americans over whether or not to continue the Israeli military presence in Gaza “in the next day” became even clearer when President Biden stated during the recent Democratic convention that “the United States will not tolerate prolonged Israeli occupation of Gaza”. At the same time, the Hamas organization reiterates with its official statements that “the US has surrendered to Israeli claims”, stressing that it will not join the ongoing negotiations, arguing that what Israel agreed to in Doha is not in line with what is said to ” had been agreed upon based on the written proposals submitted by the Palestinian organization on July 2.”

The set of contradictory statements and leaks does not bode well for the progress of the talks. The statements of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, immediately after his one-on-one meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken yesterday, were more than clear: “If talks do not progress, regional developments will be unpredictable.”

Dangerous ignition on the Israel-Hezbollah front

The increase in tension on the Israel-Hezbollah front in the last two twenty-four hours confirms al-Sisi’s ominous assessments. Specifically, for the second night in a row, Israel bombed Hezbollah’s weapons depots in the Bekaa Valley, 80 and 100 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, causing extensive material damage and human casualties. Hezbollah retaliated this morning with a barrage of at least 50 rockets, targeting the town of Katsrin, the Israeli administrative center of the Golan Heights, causing heavy material damage to the town center and wounding one civilian. The Israeli side stresses that it is the first time that Hezbollah has targeted populated areas, with the Lebanese group retorting that its target was a nearby air base from which Israel struck targets located far north of southern Lebanon. There is no end to the Israel-Hezbollah war, with Lebanese media commenting today that the situation is already out of control.