Uncertainty looms as first phase of Gaza truce due to expire

The first phase of the Israel-Hamas truce is drawing to a close on Saturday, but negotiations on the next stage, which should secure a permanent ceasefire, have so far been inconclusive.

The ceasefire took effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.

Over the initial six-week phase, Gaza militants freed 25 living hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

A second phase of the fragile truce was supposed to secure the release of dozens of hostages still in Gaza and pave the way for a more permanent end to the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sent a delegation to Cairo, and mediator Egypt said “intensive talks” on the second phase had begun with the presence of delegations from Israel as well as fellow mediators Qatar and the United States.

But by early Saturday, there was no sign of consensus, and Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group rejected “the extension of the first phase in the formulation proposed by the occupation (Israel)”.

He called on mediators “to oblige the occupation to abide by the agreement in its various stages”.

Max Rodenbeck, of the International Crisis Group think tank, said the second phase cannot be expected to start immediately.

“But I think the ceasefire probably won’t collapse also,” he said.

– Ceasefire ‘must hold’ –

The preferred Israeli scenario is to free more hostages under an extension of the first phase, rather than a second phase, Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

A Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP that Israel had proposed to extend the first phase in successive one-week intervals with a view to conducting hostage-prisoner swaps each week, adding that Hamas had rejected the plan.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas, for its part, has pushed hard for phase two to begin, after it suffered staggering losses in the devastating war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire “must hold”.

“The coming days are critical. The parties must spare no effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal,” Guterres said in New York.

The truce enabled greater aid flows into the Gaza Strip, where more than 69 percent of buildings were damaged or destroyed, almost the entire population was displaced, and widespread hunger occurred because of the war, according to the United Nations.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The Israeli retaliation has killed 48,388 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN has deemed reliable.

– ‘Nothing but God’s mercy’ –

In Gaza and throughout much of the Muslim world, Saturday also marked the first day of the month of Ramadan, during which the faithful observe a dawn-to-dusk fast.

Among the rubble of Gaza’s war-wrecked neighbourhoods, traditional Ramadan lanterns hung and people performed nightly prayers on the eve of the holy month.

“Ramadan has come this year, and we are on the streets with no shelter, no work, no money, nothing,” said Ali Rajih, a resident of the hard-hit Jabalia camp in north Gaza.

“My eight children and I are homeless, we’re living on the streets of Jabalia camp, with nothing but God’s mercy.”

Though the truce has effectively held, there have been a number of Israeli strikes.

On Friday the military said it targeted two “suspects” approaching troops in southern Gaza, where a hospital said it had received the body of one person killed in a strike.

In return for the release of the captives held in Gaza, Israel released nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners from its jails. Gaza militants also released five Thai hostages outside the truce deal’s terms.

The United States on Friday announced the approval of the sale of more than $3 billion in munitions, bulldozers and related equipment to ally Israel.

It comes amid a major military operation launched by Israel in the occupies West Bank on February 21, two days after the Gaza ceasefire began.

As part of the operation, the military has razed many homes, and an AFP journalist on Saturday saw an Israeli excavator destroying a home in the largely vacant Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

According to the UN, at least 55 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have died in the operation, which has displaced over 40,000 Palestinians.