Egypt: Gaza truce proposal ignites discord within Israeli cabinet

The latest proposal put forward by Egypt for a truce in the Gaza Strip has sparked a major dispute within the Israeli government. Ministers have warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they will dismantle the coalition government if he agrees to the proposal, which includes Israel’s willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after an initial release of hostages on humanitarian grounds, two Israeli officials told Axios news website.

On Sunday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to undermine Netanyahu’s government if he accepts the Egyptian proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. The extreme right-wing minister told Hebrew Channel 12 that agreeing to the Egyptian deal would be a “humiliating surrender, and grants victory to the [Palestinian resistance] at the expense of hundreds of heroic Israeli army soldiers who fell in the battle.”

Smotrich also claimed that the proposed agreement “imposes a death sentence on the kidnappers who are not included in the deal, and above all, constitutes a direct existential threat” to the apartheid state of Israel.

“If you decide to raise the white flag and cancel the order to invade Rafah immediately in order to complete the mission of destroying Hamas, restoring security to the residents of the south and to the citizens of Israel, and returning all our kidnapped brothers and sisters to their homes, the government that you head will have no right to exist,” he added in a direct threat to Netanyahu.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also threatened on Saturday to withdraw from Netanyahu’s government “if Rafah is not invaded.”

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According to an Israeli army spokesman on Sunday, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has approved plans to continue the war in the Gaza Strip and Rafah. Despite international warnings about a planned Israeli invasion of the city, the Israeli army insists on going ahead with attacking it, even though it is now home to nearly 1.4 million displaced Palestinians.

Israel Hayom quoted an Israeli political official yesterday as saying that the Israeli government will give ten days to two weeks for the new initiative to reach a deal with Hamas to liberate some of the Israeli prisoners. The official explained that Israel indicated in a letter to Egypt that it would accept all of Hamas’ conditions “practically, except stopping the war at the end of the deal’s implementation period.”

Israel will also agree to the withdrawal of its army from humanitarian aid corridors, an ongoing ceasefire, allowing the return of a large number of displaced people to the northern Gaza Strip, and the release of Palestinian prisoners from prisons, the official explained.

Even the moderate ministers who place the issue of Israeli prisoners at the top of their priorities are losing patience, added the official, and they know that so much time has so far been wasted in discussions, which disrupts the operation in Rafah, and therefore the talks will not last longer than that.

Meanwhile, a Hamas official told Reuters that a delegation from the movement will visit Cairo today for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and a deal with Israel. The movement’s receipt of the Israeli response to the truce proposal coincided with a visit by an Egyptian security delegation to Tel Aviv on Friday. The delegation carried an Egyptian proposal for the release of all Israeli prisoners in Gaza, the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and a one-year ceasefire, reported Yedioth Ahronoth.

For months, Egypt, Qatar and the US have been leading indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, to no avail up until now.

Tel Aviv estimates that there are about 134 Israeli prisoners in Gaza, while Hamas announced that 70 of them had been killed in random bombing raids carried out by Israel, which holds at least 9,100 Palestinian prisoners in its prisons. The conditions in which the Palestinians are being held have worsened since the occupation state began its war on Gaza, according to concerned Palestinian organisations.

READ: Hamas will not accept any deal without end to offensive against Gaza