CAIRO, Egypt: Qatar Saturday acknowledged that the prospects for a new pause in Israel’s war with Hamas were not really promising as Israel rejected calls to postpone an imminent attack on the Rafah city of Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said foreign countries calling on Israel to spare the city where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge were essentially telling the country to “lose the war” against Hamas.
Ceasefire efforts intensified this week as Qatar which is playing a mediator role and fellow brokers Egypt and the United States sought to secure a ceasefire before Israeli troops enter Rafah, the last major population center in the Gaza Strip that has not yet been touched by Israeli ground troops.
But despite a direct appeal from US President Joe Biden earlier this week, Netanyahu insisted the operation would continue regardless of whether further releases of Israeli hostages were agreed with Hamas.
“Even if we achieve that, we will enter Rafah,” Netanyahu said at a televised news conference Saturday.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who met negotiators from both Israel and Hamas this week, said the truce effort had been complicated by the insistence of “many countries” that any new truce include additional hostage releases.
“The pattern in the last few days is not really very promising,” Qatari Prime Minister said at the Munich Security Conference.
His grim assessment came as Hamas threatened to cut off its involvement in truce talks unless humanitarian supplies were brought to the northern Gaza Strip, where aid agencies have warned of imminent famine.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh earlier reiterated the group’s demands, which Netanyahu dismissed as “ridiculous.”
They include a complete pause in fighting, the release of Hamas prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, with the Qatar-based Haniyeh saying Hamas “will not accept anything less”.
Netanyahu also rejected moves by some Western governments to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state without waiting for a negotiated peace agreement between the two sides.
