A delegation of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has reportedly arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on the re-implementation of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and termination of Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Cited by Reuters on Sunday, a member of the resistance movement with knowledge of the talks said the delegation arrived in Egypt to partake in negotiations aimed at releasing Israeli prisoners and discussing “ways to end the Israeli aggression on our people.”
The unnamed member said the Islamic Jihad leaders had stressed that their clear goal was to “completely” end the war in the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinian people.
Informed Egyptian sources told Sky News Arabic Israel had days earlier requested mediation from Cairo and Doha to conclude a prisoner exchange deal as part of a new humanitarian truce in Gaza.
“We will go to Cairo with a straightforward approach, and that is to stop the aggression and the withdrawal of the enemy forces from Gaza and its reconstruction,” Islamic Jihad’s Secretary-General Ziad al-Nakhala said on Wednesday.
Underscoring the principle of “all-for-all” in the prisoner swap deal with the Israeli regime, Nakhala said, “This is a part of a political process that all Palestinian political and national parties, with Hamas on top of them, agree on.”
Israel launched the hostilities in Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long violence against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the regime has killed over 20,000 Palestinians and injured more than 56,000 others.
A Qatari-brokered humanitarian truce lasted for a week and ended on December 1, witnessing the release of 105 Israeli captives from Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing 240 Palestinian prisoners and allowing relief aids into the coastal silver.
The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a complete siege on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution for increased aid deliveries to the besieged region but stopping short of calling for an immediate halt to the genocide. The watered-down resolution demanded all sides in the conflict allow the “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale.” It also called for the creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” but it did not call for an immediate end to fighting.
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.
