Hamas Leader Arrives in Egypt to Discuss Potential Hostage Deal

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Facts

• Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh traveled to Egypt on Wednesday in a rare diplomatic intervention amid intensive talks on a new ceasefire to let aid reach Gaza and exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Yet, Israel and Hamas have publicly stated irreconcilable positions on any halt to fighting.¹
• This visit comes after Israel proposed a weeklong pause in fighting in exchange for the release of 40 hostages, including women, elderly, and those in need of urgent care, but an Israeli official has cautioned that the two sides were not 'near a final deal at the moment,' as Hamas hopes for a permanent cease-fire.²
• Meanwhile, the UN Security Council again postponed a much-anticipated vote on a resolution calling for a halt in fighting in Gaza and a major increase in humanitarian aid deliveries, at the request of the US to allow more time for negotiations.³
• Intense fighting has continued across the Gaza Strip, with Israeli forces reportedly pounding Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood and striking a residential building near a hospital in Rafah — [whose population density has allegedly exceeded 12K people per square kilometer as Israel previously designated the area as being safe, ordering people to migrate there.] The area has been bombarded on a daily basis.⁴
• Earlier this week, Israeli forces made public a large tunnel shaft in Gaza that they discovered just a few hundred meters from the heavily fortified Erez crossing and a nearby Israeli military base, which is connected to a sprawling tunnel network across Gaza and allegedly facilitated preparations for the Oct. 7 attack.⁵
• Gaza's health ministry reports that the conflict has left at least 20K people in the Gaza Strip dead, while the official Israeli death toll stands at 1.2K people. It's estimated that over 100 Israeli hostages out of the 240 captured on Oct. 7 remain alive in the Gaza Strip.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²CNN, ³New York Times, ⁴Al Jazeera, ⁵Associated Press and ⁶BBC News.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by CNN. Though, of course, Israel has a right to dismantle Hamas's military capabilities, it must wage this war in a humane way. The amount of civilians being killed will only galvanize Palestinians against peace and push them into the arms of Hamas. A more thorough and surgical campaign is now needed to eliminate Hamas's leadership in Gaza, as Israel is losing global support.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by Jerusalem post. This has indeed been a tragic war but Israel cannot allow Hamas to survive. Though it seems that the Biden admin. wants to pressure Israel into a cease-fire, Israel must push back against such short-sighted thinking. As a sovereign country, Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorism and pursue its own interests. Hamas's military capabilities must be eliminated so that the group can never launch a terrorist attack like Oct. 7 again.
• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Middle east eye. Israel continues to demonstrate that its war is not against Hamas but against the Palestinian people as a whole. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and Israel has effectively rendered the north of the strip unlivable. Israel is killing Palestinians at an unprecedented rate and clearly wants to depopulate the Gaza Strip. Though the US, Israel's biggest ally, wants to minimize the war's intensity, it must instead exert more pressure to end the war completely.

Predictions