It seems that the succession of daily “truces” in Gaza is still not enough to announce a final agreement to stop the war, as there are “Israeli obstacles” and “Hamas Nos” that prevent reaching a permanent ceasefire in the Strip, which is suffering widespread destruction and a humanitarian tragedy as a result of an Israeli bombing and siege, which lasted about a month and a half, since the seventh of last October.

Ending the war in Gaza is not a current Israeli goal, according to observers who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat. They consider that such a declaration might be described internally in Israel as a “defeat,” while the “truce” formula is the “most appropriate” expression for all parties.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Israel and the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas) reached an agreement to extend the ceasefire for a seventh day. While Egyptian and Qatari negotiators are still pressing for a new extension, which will become the fourth of its kind, and includes the release of more detainees and increased delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, according to the Egyptian State Information Service.

Since the beginning of the truce last Friday, Hamas fighters have so far released 97 hostages, including 70 Israeli women and children, in exchange for the release of three Palestinian women and girls for each Israeli hostage, in addition to 27 foreign hostages who were released in parallel agreements with their governments. .

According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who arrived in Israel on Thursday, the truce between Israel and Hamas is “producing results,” and he expressed his hope that it will “continue.”

Egypt, along with Qatar, is pressing to reach a complete ceasefire in Gaza, followed by the start of larger arrangements for peace, but these efforts “contradict Israel’s goals,” according to Ambassador Mohamed Al-Orabi, head of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, who confirmed to For Asharq Al-Awsat, “Announcing a ceasefire currently inside Israel is tantamount to declaring defeat.”

Al-Orabi explains, “The successive truces give the Israeli army a chance to breathe, and also reduce popular pressure on it to release the prisoners, and at the same time protect it from the angry reaction of the extremists who refuse to stop the war.”

Last Tuesday, the Qatari capital, Doha, hosted high-level security meetings with the participation of Mossad chief David Barnea, CIA director William Burns, and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. The Wall Street Journal quoted Egyptian officials as saying that the goal of the discussions was “to move the discussions beyond extending the armistice agreement,” but it seems that the goal has not been achieved so far.

During the talks, a proposal was raised stipulating the release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of a huge number of Palestinian prisoners and a long ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. However, the Israeli response came publicly, during the UN Security Council session, on Wednesday, after Gilad Erdan, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, set the conditions for ending the war in Gaza, saying that “peace can be achieved in the Gaza Strip immediately if (Hamas) releases all detainees and hands over all participants in the October 7 attack."

Al-Orabi, a foreign minister and former Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv, does not rule out that “Israel will resume the war again in Gaza after the end of the truces, which is currently still in everyone’s interest, but the closer the lists of prisoners get to shrinking, the greater the chances of war igniting again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing severe internal criticism regarding the ceasefire. The Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, threatened to dissolve the government if a comprehensive cessation of the war in Gaza was reached. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also considered stopping the war in exchange for the release of all detainees in Gaza “a plan to eliminate Israel,” stressing the necessity of “eliminating (Hamas).”

Hamas seeks to preserve some “military prisoners” as a trump card in the negotiations, while an informed Egyptian source told Asharq Al-Awsat that, in addition to Hamas, “what complicates any deal is the presence of prisoners also with the Islamic Jihad movement, which “It has more stringent demands than Hamas’s ‘no’s’ regarding ending the occupation.”

According to the source, the Palestinian factions reject Israeli demands to dismantle their military capabilities in order to stop the war, as Tel Aviv fears a repeat of the October 7 attack.

On Thursday, the military wing of the Hamas movement asked its fighters in Gaza to prepare to resume battles with Israel if the temporary truce is not extended. The movement said in a statement, “The Al-Qassam Brigades ask its active forces to maintain high combat readiness in the last hours of the truce.”

Successive truces allowed humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, which is inhabited by 2.3 million people and is facing an “epic humanitarian catastrophe,” according to Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who demanded - along with others - that “a ceasefire replace a temporary truce.”

( Asharq Al-Awsat)