Egypt is set to host a fresh round of indirect talks between representatives from the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement aimed at reaching a truce in Gaza just days after the adoption of a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and France convened on Saturday in the capital Cairo, where they issued a joint call for an urgent and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
An Israeli official told the Reuters news agency that Israel would send a delegation to the Cairo talks on Sunday. A Hamas official, however, told Reuters the group would wait to hear from Cairo mediators on the outcome of their talks with Israel first.
Speaking at a joint news conference in Cairo, France’s top diplomat Stephane Sejourne said his government would put forward a draft resolution at the UN Security Council setting out a “political” settlement of the war.
He said the text would include “all the criteria” for a so-called two-state solution of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sejourne further warned that the ongoing tragedy in Gaza does not serve the security of the Israeli regime and Jewish illegal settlers.
Meanwhile, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called for holding Israel accountable for its aggression in Gaza, which has persisted despite global condemnation.
Safadi stated, “If Israel challenges the entire world, then the world must take practical and effective steps to stop this madness, killing, and destruction.”
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, for his part, said Gaza “can endure no more destruction and humanitarian suffering”, and called on Israel to open its land crossings with the Strip to allow humanitarian aid.
Hamas has sought to parlay any deal into an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel, however, has ruled this out, saying that even if there is a long pause in the fighting, the war will not end until Hamas is defeated.
Israel has outlined plans for a ground invasion in Rafah in southern Gaza, which potentially involve the evacuation of around 1.5 million citizens who are currently seeking shelter in the city.
The international community has expressed alarm over such plans, considering them to have further disastrous humanitarian implications.
Israel waged its brutal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
However, more than six months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding Israeli captives despite killing at least 32,705 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 75,190 others.
