Gaza – Together – The Israeli war cabinet decided, on Monday evening, to continue the military operation targeting the Rafah area, south of the besieged Gaza Strip, despite international and international warnings in this regard, under the pretext of increasing ‘military pressure’ on the Hamas movement, after the movement announced its approval of a proposal. Mediators of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
This came according to what the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reported in a statement issued after a telephone meeting held by the war cabinet to discuss the proposal approved by the Hamas movement. Note that a senior Israeli official said in a media briefing that there was talk of a ‘watered-down’ Egyptian version that Israel had not seen before.
The statement issued by Netanyahu’s office stated, ‘The war cabinet unanimously decided that Israel would continue the (military) operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to promote the release of the hostages and achieve
the other goals of the war.’ He continued, ‘In parallel, Israel will send a delegation of mediators to exhaust The possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel.’
The statement stated that “Hamas’s proposal is far from Israel’s necessary requirements.”
Cabinet’s declaration of war regarding ‘continuing the operation in Rafah’ coincided with the occupation army’s announcement, in a statement, that its forces were ‘attacking and operating in the meantime in a surprise manner against Hamas targets in the eastern Rafah area,’ while local sources reported that the occupation escalated its attacks on areas In the city located in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Channel 13 reported that the prevailing belief among members of the war cabinet is that ‘the proposal approved by Hamas is a bad proposal that Israel cannot agree to,’ adding that the Israeli government will take a decision on Tuesday regarding the powers of the professional team that Israel will send to continue talks with the me
diators ( He will go to listen or will be authorized to hold talks.)
The channel quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that “even the pragmatic parties participating in the negotiations are very skeptical about the possibility of achieving real progress” towards reaching an agreement through mediators with Hamas on the exchange of prisoners in exchange for a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
While the Israeli negotiating team was still working on ‘studying’ the proposal that Hamas announced, on Monday evening, that it had agreed to for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Israeli government officials denounced the movement’s announcement, refusing to conclude any agreement that might lead to an end to the war on Gaza. They called for a speedy invasion of the city of Rafah.
Source: Maan News Agency