On Sunday, the head of the Israeli security service (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, talked to: Cairo with Abbas Kamel, the head of Egyptian intelligence, the Walla agency reported, citing “a source familiar with the visit.”
Middle East. Meeting at the Intelligence Summits in Cairo. The key point
The talks were supposed to concern the protracted negotiations on the matter ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages, but – according to the Times of Israel – “no breakthrough was achieved”. According to the portal, Bar and Kamel were to talk, among others: “on ways to resume talks and establish contact with the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar“.
Let us recall that the leader of a Palestinian terrorist organization recently contacted the mediator in this conflict Qatar. Sinwar's move was preceded by several weeks of silence.
The talks reportedly touched upon the issue of the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. It's about border crossing in Rafah, which has been closed since May – that is, since the Israeli army launched its offensive in this city – and running along the Gazan-Egyptian border Philadelphia corridorwhich is currently under control Telephone.
When will there be an agreement between Israel and Hamas? In the background is the issue of the border with Egypt
According to the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Israeli forces cannot withdraw from it because this is where the route through which Hamas obtains weapons leads. The Israeli prime minister also said that this could also enable Hamas to “bring hostages to… Iran“. – The axis of evil needs a Philadelphia corridor – he argued in September.
Parts of Israeli public opinion have long accused Netanyahu of dragging out the months-long negotiations for the sake of political benefits and of standing in the way of a truce. Media reports indicate that the issue of control over the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is also an issue frictions within the Israeli government. Minister of Defense Joaw Galant and the security establishment are expected to oppose Netanyahu's unyielding stance, arguing that it makes it difficult to reach an agreement and that the military is capable of securing the Philadelphia corridor, even if soldiers were to temporarily withdraw from it.
Bar's trip to Cairo was the first visit by an important Israeli official to Egypt – in order to start ceasefire talks – from August 22 – notes Walla. At the same time, commentators emphasize that all recent attempts to conclude another agreement between Israel and Hamas regarding the hostages have ended in failure.
Negotiations regarding a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Netanyahu under fire
The last successful one took place in Novemberwhen it during a week's truce 105 Israeli hostages were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian hostages prisoners. According to the Times of Israel, the reason for the prolonged stagnation is, among others, Israel's focus on fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and the several-week-long “disappearance” of the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the Haaretz daily cited statements by anonymous officials of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The newspaper's interlocutors accused the Netanyahu government of neglecting negotiations with Hamas regarding the release of the hostages, at the expense of prolonging the war in the Gaza Strip, the purpose of which – in their opinion – may be, among others, taking over and settling part of the enclave. As revealed in the article, Israeli political leaders they didn't move the issue of the hostage release in talks with international mediators since August, when the last negotiations on this matter failed.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied accusations that Israel is trying to restore civilian settlements in the Gaza Strip under the guise of fighting Hamas. Still, far-right members of his government have openly pushed for a reversal of the country's 2005 decision to disappear Israeli soldiers and civilian residents from the enclave.
According to the Times of Israel, 97 of the 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 remain in the Gaza Strip. This number also includes the bodies of at least 34 people whose deaths were confirmed by the Israeli army.
Sources: Times of Israel, “Haaretz”, Walla