Mediation efforts pick up pace as alarm grows over hunger in Gaza

Israelis attend a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Feb 27, 2024 to mourn the dead in Gaza amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas. (PHOTO / REUTERS)

JERUSALEM/GAZA — Israel and Hamas both sounded notes of caution on Tuesday over the progress toward a truce in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden said he believed a cease-fire could be reached in less than a week to halt the fighting for Ramadan.

In remarks broadcast on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, Biden said Israel agreed to halt fighting in Gaza for Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which is expected to begin on March 10. On Monday, the president said he hoped a cease-fire agreement would be nailed down by March 4.

Israeli officials, however, said Biden's comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the country's leadership.

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The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel wants a deal immediately, but that Hamas continues to push excessive demands. They also said Israel is insisting that female soldiers be part of the first group of hostages released under any truce deal.

A Hamas official also played down any sense of progress, saying the group wouldn't soften its demands.

Hamas official Ahmad Abdel-Hadi indicated that optimism about a deal was premature.

"The resistance is not interested in giving up any of its demands, and what is proposed does not meet what it had requested," he told the Pan-Arab TV channel Al Mayadeen.

Hamas has previously demanded that Israel end the conflict as part of any deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "delusional".

Talks to pause the fighting were still underway on Tuesday. Negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a cease-fire that would see Hamas free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week halt in fighting and an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza.

At a news conference in Doha on Tuesday, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said his country felt "optimistic" about the talks, without elaborating.

'Race against time'

In Paris, the visiting emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, spoke on Tuesday of "a race against time" to secure hostage releases as part of the diplomatic push for a cease-fire in the conflict in Gaza.

In Yemen, the Houthis said on Tuesday they could only reconsider their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea once Israel ends its "aggression "in the Gaza Strip.

Asked if they would halt the attacks if a cease-fire deal is reached, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters the situation would be reassessed if the siege of Gaza ended and humanitarian aid was free to enter.

In the wake of Hamas' Oct 7 attack on southern Israel, Israel's air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated large swaths of the urban landscape and displaced 80 percent of the battered enclave's population.

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Israel's seal on the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food and other aid, has sparked alarm that a famine could be imminent, according to the United Nations.

With UN truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France conducted an airdrop of food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them.

But alarm is growing over worsening hunger among Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians.

Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gaza's Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra.