The decision of the UN International Court of Justice in which it considers it plausible that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and the intensification of military operations in Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold in the south of the Palestinian strip, coincide in time with intense diplomatic efforts to reach a weeks-long ceasefire.
To promote a cessation of hostilities that would disrupt the course of the war and lead to the exchange of more than a hundred hostages held captive in Gaza since October 7 for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, the United States has sent this weekend the director of the CIA, William Burns, to a summit convened in an unspecified place in Europe with the intelligence services of Israel, and the mediators of Egypt and Qatar.
“The decision of the judges in The Hague increases the pressure on President Joe Biden to demand that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu end the war,” says Israeli diplomatic analyst Barak Ravid, who anticipated on the digital portal Axios, together with
The Washington Post,
the direct intervention of the head of the CIA in the mediation process.
“Biden already made it clear to Netanyahu a week ago in a telephone conversation that he is not going to accept that the war should be prolonged (...) in an election year in the United States,” Ravid emphasizes.
Biden telephoned the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al Thani, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al Sisi, on Friday to thank them for their mediation in the release of those kidnapped in Gaza.
“An agreement on the hostages is essential to establish a prolonged ceasefire and guarantee that vital humanitarian aid reaches the civilian population,” said a statement released by the White House after the president's call to the Qatari leader.
The US presidential envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, who participated in the ceasefire agreement in November that allowed the departure of a hundred kidnapped people in Gaza, prepared the ground this week in Doha before traveling to Cairo.
In his conversation with Al Sisi, Biden called for “establishing the foundations for a lasting and sustainable peace in the Middle East that includes a Palestinian state.”
The director of Mossad (foreign intelligence service), David Barnea, and that of the Shin Bet (internal security), Rosen Bar, have confirmed that they would attend the meeting called in Europe by the head of the CIA, according to the public broadcaster of Israeli radio KAN.
The director of Egypt's military intelligence service, Abbas Kamel, and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abderamán Al Thani, would also be present at the conclave, both regular interlocutors with the political leadership of Hamas.
The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, which sparked the conflict on October 7 in an attack on Israeli territory in which 1,200 people were killed and another 240 kidnapped, demands the end of the war as the starting point of all negotiations.
Israel rejects the precondition that its army stop attacks and withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
In exchange, it offers a ceasefire of between 35 and 60 days, according to different sources consulted by the Hebrew press, to release the 136 hostages - at least 29 of them dead - who remain in Gaza.
During the truce period, the exchange of hostages for prisoners would take place in several stages, agreed upon by both parties.
In a first phase, minors, women, the chronically ill and civilian hostages held by Hamas and other militias, such as the Islamic Jihad, should be released in exchange for the subsequent release of a number of Palestinian prisoners still pending to be fixed.
The handover of the kidnapped military women and the rest of the deceased hostages would follow, and would conclude with the release of captive Israeli officers and soldiers.
“The right time has come to move towards an agreement [on the hostages], thanks to the diplomatic momentum achieved,” analyst Barak Ravid predicted on Friday on the digital portal
Walla
.
Hamas continues to strongly demand an end to the Israeli military invasion of Gaza, in a strategy that suggests it may demand a high number of released Palestinian prisoners in exchange for each hostage captured in Israel.
Yahya Sinwar himself, political leader of the Islamist movement in Gaza, was released from prison in 2011 as part of the exchange operation of 1,047 Palestinian prisoners that allowed the release of soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held hostage in Gaza for five years.
Last Friday, Hamas released a video showing three female Israeli hostages, two of them soldiers, in an image apparently taken a week ago.
“Prospects for reaching a truce”
In addition to the United States, other Western countries have been directly involved in mediating the release of the hostages through a prolonged ceasefire.
At the end of a tour of the Middle East, the head of diplomacy of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, has assured that progress is being made towards achieving a cessation of hostilities in Gaza that will lead to the release of the hostages and an increase in entry of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian strip.
“There are prospects of reaching a truce to stop the fighting,” Cameron told Reuters, who has urged Israel to authorize the passage of international aid to the Mediterranean enclave through the port of Ashdod, located 30 kilometers from the border with the north of the Strip.
In an invariable mantra, Netanyahu reiterates day after day that the only way he accepts to free the hostages is “total victory” over Hamas, whose political and military arms he intends to eradicate from the Strip.
In recent days, the prime minister and one of his most extremist allies, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have tried to torpedo Qatar's mediation by accusing the emirate of having financed Hamas.
On Saturday night, the head of the Israeli Government insisted that Qatar is a “problematic” mediator.
“Qatar hosts Hamas leaders.
It also funds and influences Hamas, and should apply more pressure,” Netanyahu said in a televised news conference.
The sending of William Burns, a veteran diplomat who has headed the CIA since 2021, to mediate in the Middle East shows the growing interest of the White House in unblocking the negotiations that have been pursuing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for weeks.
As John Kirby, national security spokesman for the US president, has highlighted: “Burns already contributed to the previous hostage agreement, and now he is going to try a new one.”
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