“A COMPLETE FAILING”
However, the Axios news website, citing two Israeli officials, reported that Israel’s latest proposal includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after hostages are released.
It is the first time that Israeli leaders have suggested they are open to discussing an end to the war, Axios said.
A Hamas source close to the negotiations had told AFP the group “is open to discussing the new proposal positively” and is “keen to reach an agreement that guarantees a permanent ceasefire, the free return of displaced people, an acceptable deal for (prisoner) exchange and ensuring an end to the siege” in Gaza.
As diplomatic efforts intensified, US President Joe Biden spoke with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone on Sunday and reviewed the ongoing talks, the White House said.
Countries hoping to broker a ceasefire are among those at a summit in Saudi Arabia, whose Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the international community has failed Gaza.
“The situation in Gaza obviously is a catastrophe by every measure – humanitarian, but also a complete failing of the existing political system to deal with that crisis,” Prince Faisal told the World Economic Forum (WEF) special meeting in Riyadh.
He reiterated that only “a credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state” will prevent the world from confronting “this same situation two, three, four years down the line”.
Netanyahu’s hard-right government rejects calls for a Palestinian state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, appealed at the WEF meeting for the United States to stop Israel from invading Rafah, which he said would be “the biggest disaster in the history of the Palestinian people”.
Israel vows to go after Hamas battalions in the southern Gaza city on the border with Egypt, but the prospect has raised global alarm because much of Gaza’s population has sought shelter there.
