How Netanyahu is Killing Gaza ‘Peace Talks’

Anyone following the news of the prisoner exchange deal talks can see that it has become clear that Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeatedly thwarting efforts to secure prisoner exchange deals with the resistance. Despite various attempts to facilitate these exchanges and several approvals by the resistance movements led by Hamas, Netanyahu’s actions have consistently led to delays and complications according to the Quds News Network.

The following timeline provides a look at how Netanyahu’s decisions and strategic leaks have derailed progress on multiple occasions, raising questions about the underlying personal motives, which have turned the lives of the Palestinian people and Israeli prisoners alike into a political game.

January 17, 2024: Netanyahu cancels the outcomes of the preparatory meetings for the first Paris meeting without coordinating with the Israeli War Council or the Israeli negotiating team, and tightens Israel’s stance.

January 24, 2024: Netanyahu delays granting authorization to the Israeli negotiating team and postpones the first Paris meeting.

The Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, publicly criticized him for the first time in a tweet.
“If the reported remarks are found to be true, the Israeli PM would only be obstructing and undermining the mediation process, for reasons that appear to serve his political career instead of prioritizing saving innocent lives, including Israeli hostages”, he said.

“Instead of concerning himself with Qatar’s strategic relations with the United States, we hope Netanyahu decides to operate in good faith and concentrate on the release of the hostages.”

January 28-31, 2024: During the first Paris meeting, progress was made. However, upon his return to Israel, the head of Mossad was surprised by Netanyahu’s publication of five statements that widened the gaps, revealing confidential information during the negotiations.

February 6, 2024: Amidst efforts to reach a humanitarian truce before the month of Ramadan, Hamas announced it had responded positively to mediator initiatives. However, Netanyahu quickly leaked statements to Channel 13 under the name “a senior Israeli political official” declaring that Hamas’s stance meant rejecting the deal.

February 13, 2024: At the Cairo meeting, Netanyahu delayed sending a delegation. When he did, he sent them without authorization and accompanied by his personal advisor to restrict the head of Mossad. He then refrained from sending a delegation to continue the talks despite the negotiating team’s support.

February 23, 2024: At the second Paris meeting, Netanyahu called the head of Mossad on his way to Paris to inform him of reducing his authorized powers, despite it being approved by the War Council.

March 16, 2024: Netanyahu refused to hold a War Council meeting to discuss the negotiating team’s authorization on the eve of proposed talks in Doha. A military representative on the negotiating team leaked to the media his frustration with Netanyahu’s actions.

April 8, 2024: Renewed negotiations aimed at a “phased deal” to release 33 Israeli prisoners. The Israeli army announced its withdrawal from Khan Yunis. However, after threats from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu announced a military operation in Rafah, causing the negotiations to collapse.

April 25, 2024: Netanyahu leaked confidential information from the negotiations to Smotrich, who then leaked it to the media, causing the negotiations to collapse again.

April 26, 2024: Netanyahu contacted the Israeli negotiating team without the knowledge of the War Council to reduce their authorized powers.

May 4, 2024: Netanyahu preempted a response expected by mediators to Hamas on an Israeli exchange proposal by issuing a statement rejecting ending the war in any way.

May 6, 2024: Hamas officially accepted the Israeli proposal presented to them. However, Netanyahu hastened to reject Hamas’s response before any security consultations or high-level meetings.

June 3, 2024: After US President Biden announced his plan for a prisoner exchange deal and ending the war on June 1, Netanyahu leaked his opposition to Biden’s plan during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset.

June 23, 2024: Netanyahu announced in an interview with Channel 14 that he is only interested in a partial deal, which allows him to resume the war.

July 12, 2024: Israeli media reported that Netanyahu has introduced additional obstacles in the ceasefire negotiations.

They cited senior Israeli officials as stating that Netanyahu is currently controlling all the details and has decided to harden his stance on the negotiations.

“Netanyahu is almost single-handedly managing the negotiations”, they stated accords to the Quds News Network.

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Thousands Flee Gaza City Under Israeli Bombs

Thousands of Palestinians fled large areas of southwest Gaza City when Israeli forces early Monday morning unexpectedly intruded for the first time in over three months and opened heavy fire targeting roads, homes, and residential buildings, resulting in dozens of casualties.

The Israeli forces’ incursion prompted a mass exodus of thousands of Palestinians to the city’s northwestern neighborhoods.

An Anadolu correspondent reported that Israeli military vehicles entered the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, the industrial area, the university zones, and the southern outskirts of the Rimal under heavy fire from fighter jets and artillery.

Massive explosions and continuous air and heavy artillery bombardment targeted eastern, central, and western Gaza City overnight and into Monday morning, witnesses told Anadolu.

This was the first large-scale military offensive since the Israeli army’s attack near Al-Shifa Hospital and its surroundings at the end of March.

Palestinian medical sources reported that the Israeli airstrikes targeted residential buildings, roads, and apartments, resulting in dozens of casualties in various parts of Gaza City.

Due to the intensified bombardment, rescue and medical teams have been unable to move to help the injured or retrieve the dead.

Witnesses also reported that Israeli forces heavily used smoke and gas bombs in different areas of Gaza City, particularly in the new incursion areas.

Thousands of Palestinians fled from the city’s southwestern areas to the northwest and spent the night in the streets without shelter, according to the witnesses.

On Sunday, the Israeli army ordered residents and displaced people in the Tuffah, al-Daraj and Old City neighborhoods to immediately evacuate to shelters in the western part of the city.

The Israeli army has been targeting the Shejaiya neighborhood, which is located near Tuffah, Daraj, and Old City, since June 27.

The army’s actions in these areas in recent days have resulted in dozens of Palestinian casualties.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

More than 38,150 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 87,800 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Nine months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

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The Israeli Army Exhausts Its Goals in Gaza – Military Expert

Military and strategic expert Dr. Nidal Abu Zeid said the Israeli occupation army has reached a difficult stage in its military operations in Gaza, and has now exhausted its goals. He said this explains the latest bombing of one of the shelters for displaced persons in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Zeid added the occupation army is in rapid transformations with its war on  entering its 10th month. He told Jo 24 its no longer able to move in large areas as the resistance groups have succeeded in stripping them of the intelligence element and no longer able to receive information and targets of the fighting sectors they are dealing with.

The resistance also succeeded in exploiting the rubble of houses resulting from their massive destruction and turning them into an artificial obstacles to hinder the progress of the occupation military machine and the imposition of short and narrow firing ranges, concealment, and carrying out of ambushes and raids, as happened in Tal al-Sultan in Rafah and Shujaiya in the north.

Abu Zaid stated the enemy was planning to penetrate into Shujaiya and cross from it via the Baghdad Road to Omar Al-Mukhtar Road, so it could provide it with freedom of movement to the north, towards Al-Tuffah and west, towards Zaytoun, but after 10 days of fighting in Shujaiya, the resistance realized what the Israeli army was planning. Therefore, they started implementing several plans and models for combat and thus prevented the occupation forces from penetrating the Shujaiya neighborhood, whose area does not exceed two square kilometers.

Abu Zeid pointed out the reason for the difference in the form of fighting in Shujaiya from Rafah is related to the resistance’s ability to adapt to the geography of the area and succeeding in adapting the land to its advantage in confronting the Israeli occupation forces.

Abu Zeid pointed out that the occupation insists on controlling wide land corridors, such as the Netzarim Corridor and the Philadelphia Corridor, to achieve military and political goals for the possible transition to the third phase of the war, to launch its operations from these corridors supposed to provide it with good mobility.

 Politically also, the occupation is trying to strengthen its negotiating cards by negotiating over areas which it controls, he concluded.

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Itzhak Brik  Says Netanyahu is Lying on Gaza

Reserve Israeli general Itzhak Brik is a tireless critic of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. He says “what is happening in Gaza is a big disgrace. We are losing a lot, and [Netanyahu] throws dust in the eyes,” the Quds News Network quotes him saying.

“The IDF realizes that Hamas cannot be defeated and soldiers are being sent to their deaths. Herzi Helevi wants to stay in his position until the end of his term; he is deceptive,” he adds.

“…officers, brigade commanders, and soldiers talk to me daily from the field, informing me of what is happening every minute. Yesterday, an officer spoke to me and said, ‘Brik, keep going strong with what you are doing.’ He is in Rafah now and told me that I am truthful in every word I say,” Brik told Israel’s Channel 7.

In reference to statements made by government about the war he said “they deceive the public and don’t tell the truth…we are not winning.  We do not confront Hamas, they don’t even stand in front of us.

All the statements that the army killed 100 here, and 200 there are incorrect. The [Hamas] fighters are underground; they come out, launch rockets and return. They are blowing up houses and using explosives against us and we are being killed,” the retired General said.

“There is no such closure of the tunnels that reach Sinai. These tunnels which they call Hames’s oxygen tubes have been used to transport weapons and combat equipment and the army claims to have controlled the Philadelphi Route and closed the tunnels is not true.

To close these tunnels, a canal 9km long and 50 meters deep must be dug because these tunnels are located 50 meters underground and all weapons and equipment come through them. The army does not intend to dig a canal 9km long and 50 meters deep,” he says.

Are they deceiving us? The army chief of staff said that the army is close to victory in Rafah, the Channel 7 interviewer interjects.

“They are clearly deceiving the public and lying to them,” Brik says.

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‘Two Years to Knock Out Hamas in Rafah’ – Israeli 12 Brigade Chief

Israeli Commander of the 12th Brigade says dismantling the Hamas structure in Rafah will take at least two years.

Hevri El-Baz said the task of eliminating Hamas is not something easy and this issue requires time and great military pressure that needs to be applied consistently on Hamas fighters operating in Rafah.

The Israeli army entered Rafah on 6 May and they are still battling Palestinian resistance fighters there with daily losses in lives and hardware.

The Israeli military commander says Hamas is waging a guerrilla war made up of independent groups which makes the task of dealing with it more difficult.

These groups are a broad representation of the Palestinian resistance movement including the Islamists Saraya Al Quds and the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigade of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Israeli commander warns whoever thinks that the sirens will stop within the next year is throwing sands in the eyes, adding fighting in Rafah is going slowly and Hamas fighters have studied us well.

The comments made by El-Baz are being uttered when there are at least nine brigades operating in this small city. Also, it shows the stiff resistance they are encountering from the different Palestinian armed groups.  

The commander is echoing the views made by many Israelis including Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari who openly said Hamas can’t be beaten in Gaza and whoever believes that is throwing sand in the public’s eyes.  

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