US pressure on Israel to soften the humanitarian conditions in Gaza led the White House to announce yesterday with much fanfare that Israel will take four-hour "breaks" every day, announced three hours in advance. The Israeli response was the most similar to a disappointment: we are already practicing them - to facilitate the Palestinian exodus to the south of the strip - and they are "tactical" pauses.
The announcement by the White House seemed one thing and the Israeli version another, despite the coincidence in the facts: the Israeli army guarantees since Monday - and encourages - that Gazans from the northern half move south by road of Salah al-Din, which they do on foot, in carts and cars in the number of 50,000 people the day before yesterday and 80,000 yesterday, according to a balance sheet of the Israeli army.
As if it were an unprecedented success, the White House announced that Israel would start giving a four-hour truce starting yesterday, for humanitarian purposes. A kind of US diplomatic success over the stubbornness of Prime Minister Netanyahu, with whom President Biden spoke on the phone on Monday. When asked if he was frustrated with the relationship, Joe Biden replied that everything "is costing a little more than I expected."
"There is no ceasefire. I repeat: there is no ceasefire. What we are doing are local tactical pauses," replied Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht. Discrepancies or some kind of good cop, bad cop role-playing? In any case, the US reiterates clearly and seamlessly that it is not time for a truce.
The 240 hostages continue to be the subject of intense diplomatic negotiations on several sides, which could explain this mess of breaks and the corridor to the south, which helps to improve Israel's image vis-à-vis the civilians of Gaza. Qatari Prime Minister Muhammad bin Abderrahman al-Thani met for several hours in Doha with Mossad chief David Barnea and CIA chief William Burns to discuss a possible deal proposed by eve, also in Doha, by the political leadership of Hamas and residents in Qatar. The basis of the proposal is the release of a group of hostages – between 12 and 15 or even 20, according to the sources – in exchange for a 72-hour truce under the pretext of being able to carry out a release as necessary .
Nothing has transpired from the tripartite meeting in Qatar, except that the hostages constitute a bridge of dialogue, interposed, between the Israelis and Hamas, thanks to the Qatari capacity to play all the roles of the cast.
Hamas is holding hostage its bargaining chip, perhaps its only one, and yesterday it used it in collaboration with its Islamic Jihad allies, who released a video of a 12-year-old boy and a 76-year-old Israeli woman, who offered to be released in the next few hours for health reasons. And in exchange for nothing.
The military campaign in Gaza continues to progress, even if it is too early to have a clear picture of the importance of the military advances and successes that the Israel Defense Forces are spreading every day. Just like in the Gaza Strip, the living conditions are only getting worse, even though the Palestinians have demonstrated for decades an exceptional capacity for survival, beyond the imaginable. Gaza's death toll continues to climb, reaching 10,812 lives, according to Hamas.
At the regional level, in the prevailing tone of containment, the United States attacked an ammunition base in Syria yesterday morning, in Maysalun, near the border with Israel, as a warning to the groups and militias in the which he accuses of putting pressure on his troops in the region. According to the Pentagon, US bases and posts in the Middle East have received 41 attacks since October 7, the fateful day.
