The latest flurry of Gaza ceasefire talks — the back-and-forth over now-familiar sticking points and appeals from around the world — obscures a grim truth about the monthslong efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war and free scores of hostages.
Any deal requires the signatures of two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
They are sworn enemies, notoriously tough negotiators and know that the outcome of the talks will profoundly shape their legacies. In Sinwar’s case, it could mean life or death.
Both have strong incentives to end the war. But they may also think they stand to gain by holding out a bit longer, and that war is preferable to a deal that falls short of their demands.
Here’s a look at the two leaders and the constraints they face.
What does Netanyahu want?
Netanyahu has promised “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the hostages held in Gaza — goals that many believe are incompatible.
He has come under tremendous pressure from the hostages’ families and much of the Israeli public to make a deal to bring them home, even if it leaves a battered Hamas intact. The United States, which has provided key military aid and diplomatic support to Israel, is also pushing for such a deal.
But Netanyahu’s governing coalition relies on far-right ministers who want to permanently reoccupy Gaza and have threatened to bring down the government if he concedes too much. That would force early elections that could drive him from power at a time when he is on trial for corruption.
It would also hasten a broader reckoning over the security failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others — on Netanyahu’s watch. Netanyahu has rejected calls for a government investigation until the war is over.
The longer the war drags on, the more likely Israel is to achieve something that looks like victory — the killing of Sinwar, the rescue of more hostages — and the longer Netanyahu has to repair his political standing and reshape his legacy. But it also comes with risks as the number of soldiers killed in action rises nearly every day and Israel becomes increasingly isolated because of the suffering it has inflicted on Palestinians.
Netanyahu has clashed with his own defense minister over the endgame. Israeli media is filled with reports quoting unnamed senior security officials expressing frustration with Netanyahu, especially his demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza. Some have gone so far as to accuse him of sabotaging the talks.
Both Israel and Hamas say they have accepted different versions of an evolving US-backed ceasefire proposal in principle, while suggesting changes and accusing the other of making unacceptable demands.
Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a local think tank, acknowledged the anger directed at Netanyahu in the local press and among segments of Israeli society but said Sinwar bore most of the blame for the impasse because he had shown little interest in compromising.
“If we saw Sinwar was serious about getting a deal, that would force Israel and Netanyahu to expose their cards,” Plesner said. The current situation is “almost like negotiating with oneself.”
What does Sinwar want?
Sinwar wants to end the war — but only on his terms.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 40,000 people, according to local health officials, displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s population and destroyed its main cities. Hamas has lost thousands of fighters and much of its militant infrastructure.
Sinwar’s only bargaining chips are the roughly 110 hostages still held in Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead. And he needs much more than a temporary pause in the fighting if he hopes to salvage anything resembling victory from the Oct. 7 attack that he helped mastermind.
That begins with assurances that Israel won’t resume the war once some or all of the hostages are freed. He also needs Israel to withdraw from all of Gaza to ensure that the lasting impact of the Oct. 7 attack is not a permanent reoccupation of the territory. The release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal is a sacred cause for Sinwar, who was himself a long-serving prisoner freed in an exchange. And he needs assurances that Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and rebuild them.
“Sinwar is very much concerned with bringing negotiations to a conclusion, whether with regard to a ceasefire or an exchange of prisoners, because in both cases, Sinwar will have come out as the winner,” said Nabih Awada, a Lebanese political analyst and former militant who spent years in an Israeli prison with Sinwar.
There are risks for Sinwar in drawing the talks out: More hostages are likely to die or be rescued as the war grinds on. Death, destruction and hardship in Gaza will continue, and could stoke Palestinian discontent with Hamas, with political implications down the line.
Sinwar himself, who sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list, could be killed at any time. But given the centrality of martyrdom in Hamas’ history and ideology, he may feel that outcome is inevitable — and preferable to a deal that looks like defeat.
Can any external pressure help?
Egypt and Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas, but their influence is limited.
Any pressure exerted on Hamas’ exiled leadership is unlikely to have much impact on Sinwar, who was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Sinwar is believed to have spent most of the past 10 months living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world.
The United States has provided crucial military support for Israel throughout the conflict and has shielded it from international calls for a ceasefire. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden paused a shipment of hundreds of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs to pressure Israel not to invade the southern city of Rafah — which it did anyway.
US election politics could also blunt American pressure. Biden has shown little inclination to pressure Netanyahu, and Vice President Kamala Harris has offered no concrete policy changes. Donald Trump has urged Israel to finish up its offensive but would likely be even more accommodating to Netanyahu, as he was during his presidency.
Any US arms embargo is even less likely when Israel faces a potential retaliatory strike from Iran over the killing of Haniyeh. Instead, the United States has poured military assets into the region, taking some of the pressure off Israel.
Sinwar might have hoped that the targeted killings of Haniyeh and a top Hezbollah commander last month would widen the war. But that appears less likely, with both Israel and Hezbollah applying the brakes following a heavy exchange of fire over the weekend.
The ceasefire talks have continued through it all, punctuated by fleeting moments of optimism.
The mediators have spent recent weeks trying to hammer out a bridging proposal with Netanyahu, but it’s still a work in progress. It has not yet been submitted to Sinwar.
Two sworn enemies hold the key to ending the war in Gaza. Does either man want a deal?
https://arab.news/wtr4x
Two sworn enemies hold the key to ending the war in Gaza. Does either man want a deal?
- Any deal requires the signatures of two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
- They are sworn enemies, notoriously tough negotiators and know that the outcome of the talks will profoundly shape their legacies
‘Humiliated’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN
- Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention
GENEVA: Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week.
“I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital where he worked.
Ahead of the hearings Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva dismissed them as a waste of time, saying Israel investigated and prosecuted any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces.
Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video-link to a public hearing, speaking through an interpreter.
He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.
“I was like a punching bag,” he said of one particularly harrowing interrogation he endured in January 2024.
The interrogator, he said, “kept hitting me on my genitals... I was bleeding everywhere, I was bleeding from my penis, I was bleeding from my anus.”
“I felt like my soul (left) my body.”
Fattah spoke Tuesday during the latest of a series of public hearings hosted by the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
This week’s hearings, harshly criticized by Israel, are specifically focused on allegations of “sexual and reproductive violence” committed by Israeli security forces and settlers.
“It’s important,” COI member Chris Sidoti, who hosted the meeting, told AFP. Victims of such abuse are “entitled to be heard,” he said.
Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention, but also at checkpoints and other settings since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
Meron, for Israel, slammed attempts to equate allegations against individual Israelis with Hamas’s “shocking... sexual violence toward Israeli hostages, toward victims on October 7.”
Any such comparison was “reprehensible,” he told reporters on Monday.
He insisted the hearings were “wasting time,” since Israel as “a country with law and order” would investigate and prosecute any wrongdoings.
But Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis decried a glaring lack of accountability, alleging that abuse had become “a widespread policy.”
All those arrested from Gaza were strip-searched, she said, with the soldiers in some cases “pushing the sticks” into the prisoner’s anus.
Sexual abuse happened “in a very massive way” especially in the first months of the war, she said.
“I think you can say that most of those who were arrested in these months were subjected to such practice.”
The allegations of abuse are not limited to detention centers.
Mohamed Matar, a West Bank resident, said he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers, even as Israeli police refused to intervene.
Just days after the October 7 attack, he and other Palestinian activists went to help protect a Bedouin community facing settler attacks.
As they were leaving the compound, they were chased and caught by a group of settlers, who he said were joined by members of Israel’s Shabak security agency.
He and two other men were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear and, had their hands tied before being taken into a nearby stable.
The leader stood “on my head and ordered me to eat ... the faeces of the sheep,” said Matar.
With dozens of settlers around, the man urinated on the three, and beat them so badly during the nearly 12 hours of abuse that Matar said he cried: “just shoot me in the head.”
The man, he said, jumped on his back and repeatedly “tried to introduce a stick into my anus.”
Blinking back tears, Matar showed Sidoti a photograph taken by the settlers showing the three blindfolded men lying in the dirt in their underwear.
Other pictures taken after the ordeal showed him with massive bruises all over his body.
Speaking to journalists after his testimony, he said he had spent months “in a state of psychological shock.”
“I didn’t think there were people on Earth with such a level of ugliness, sadism and cruelty.”
Financial reform plan can unlock foreign support for Lebanon, IMF says
- Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery
- Follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt
BEIRUT: A unified financial reform plan will allow Lebanon to overcome its economic issues and unlock foreign funding, the head of the IMF’s mission to the country said on Wednesday.
Ernesto Ramirez Rigo was speaking in a meeting with President Joseph Aoun, who said that Lebanon was “committed to moving forward with implementing reforms.”
Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery.
It follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt.
Presidential media adviser Najat Charafeddine told Arab News: “The IMF delegation emphasized that Lebanon’s proposed plan must be approved by all relevant parties in order to pass in parliament.
Implementing reforms will enable Lebanon to receive aid, including grants, particularly from countries with close ties, the delegation said.
“Achieving the plan will serve as an IMF seal of approval that will unlock assistance,” Lebanese officials were told.
The delegation also highlighted “the necessity of Lebanon returning to the fundamentals, particularly in restructuring banks and revisiting banking secrecy laws, which have yet to see the light of day due to disagreements.”
Over the past two days, specialized technical meetings have continued between experts from the IMF and a World Bank delegation, along with directors of departments and specialized experts at the Lebanese Ministry of Finance.
The talks aimed “to reach conclusions on proposed issues to promote transparency in public finances and more comprehensive reforms,” a Ministry of Finance statement said.
The IMF delegation met Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Finance Minister Yassine Jaber to discuss the details of the economic plan and required reforms.
Jaber said he discussed “the priorities, namely the appointment of the governor of Banque du Liban, who will play a crucial role in working with the IMF.
“Preparations for reforms are ongoing to enable Lebanon to implement its financial plan,” he added, highlighting support for amending Lebanon’s Monetary and Credit Law.
Jaber said: “The issue of frozen deposits in banks will be addressed in stages, and as minister of finance, I have no authority over the banking sector.”
Ousmane Dione, World Bank VP for the Middle East and North Africa, who met Jaber in Beirut in late February, had previously called on the Lebanese government to implement reforms.
This would “ensure credibility and transparency, reassure investors and improve the business environment,” he said.
The IMF delegation will meet a technical committee at the Association of Banks on Thursday.
According to media reports, the meeting will focus on “the performance of the exchange market and the Banque du Liban’s interventions, the banking restrictions on transfers and the authorization of certain outgoing transfers.
“This is seen as an attempt to monitor Lebanon’s cash economy, which has flourished since the country’s financial collapse.”
Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure exerted by Lebanon on the five-member committee overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel led to the release of four captives held by the latter on Tuesday evening.
The development was welcomed by Hezbollah supporters.
Israel is set to release a fifth person, a Lebanese soldier, on Wednesday evening, after he underwent surgery in an Israeli hospital.
It follows the release of four Lebanese captives a day earlier.
On social media, activists supporting Hezbollah celebrated the release of prisoners held by Israel for three months as a result of “diplomatic, not military, efforts.”
One activist claimed that President Joseph Aoun “had achieved what 100,000 rockets failed to accomplish,” while another said: “Diplomacy succeeded in releasing five prisoners, and tomorrow it could resolve the issues surrounding the disputed border points.”
Axios quoted a US official on Tuesday: “The Trump administration had been mediating between Israel and Lebanon for several weeks with the aim of strengthening the ceasefire and reaching a broader agreement.
“All parties are committed to upholding the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon and fulfilling all its conditions. We look forward to convening swift meetings of the working groups regarding Lebanon to address the outstanding issues. Israel and Lebanon have agreed to initiate negotiations to resolve disputes concerning their land borders.”
Six of 13 points remain unresolved since the establishment of the Blue Line following Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.
Additionally, Israel has yet to withdraw from five Lebanese hills it occupies in the border area following the recent conflict.
Reporters in the south have said that the Israeli army has expanded its presence around the hills, where it has established military facilities.
A joint statement issued by the US and French embassies in Lebanon and UNIFIL on Tuesday said: “The ceasefire implementation mechanism committee will continue to hold regular meetings to ensure full implementation of the cessation of hostilities.”
Israeli Channel 12 quoted an Israeli politician as saying: “Discussions with Lebanon are part of a broader and comprehensive plan. Israel aims to achieve normalization with Lebanon.
“The prime minister’s policy has already transformed the Middle East, and we wish to maintain this momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon.
“Just as Lebanon has claims regarding the borders, we also have our own border claims ... we will address these matters.”
More arrests reported in Israeli West Bank raids
- Overnight, Israeli troops conducted raids in the villages of Qabatiya and Arraba
WEST BANK: Israeli forces reported fresh arrests as they kept up raids in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, a day after troops shot dead three Palestinians as part of an ongoing military operation.
Overnight, Israeli troops conducted raids in the villages of Qabatiya and Arraba, arresting about a dozen Palestinians allegedly “involved in terrorist activity” and seizing around 100 kilograms of materials used to make explosives, the military said in a statement.
The detainees were handed over to the Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency for further investigation, the military added.
Several of those arrested, their eyes blindfolded, were escorted by Israeli soldiers to military vehicles before being taken to a building in Arraba that was used by troops as an interrogation center, an AFP correspondent reported.
In Qabatiya, army bulldozers were seen tearing up sections of road, the correspondent added.
The Israeli military frequently destroys roads in the West Bank, saying it is to prevent their use for planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The raids followed the military’s announcement on Tuesday that it had killed three militants in a “counterterrorism” operation in Jenin.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority confirmed the deaths and reported that a Palestinian woman was also killed Tuesday by Israeli forces.
The Israeli military has been conducting a sweeping offensive across multiple areas of the West Bank since January 21, two days after a fragile ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip, largely halting 15 months of war there.
The operation, dubbed “Iron Wall,” has resulted in dozens of deaths, including Palestinian children and Israeli soldiers, according to the UN.
Additionally, around 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from areas where the army was operating.
Violence in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, has escalated since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
Since then, at least 910 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian ministry of health in Ramallah.
Meanwhile, at least 32 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
At least 1,383 civilians killed in Syria violence: new monitor toll
- The civilians were killed in “executions by security forces and allied groups“
- The latest deaths were recorded in the coastal provinces of Latakia, Tartus and Hama
BEIRUT: At least 1,383 civilians, the vast majority of them Alawites, were killed in a wave of violence that gripped the Syrian Arab Republic’s Mediterranean coast, a war monitor said Wednesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians were killed in “executions by security forces and allied groups,” after a wave of violence broke out last week in the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority to which toppled president Bashar Assad belonged.
The Britain-based Observatory added that even as the violence subsided, the toll was still rising as bodies continued to be discovered, many on farmland or in their homes.
The latest deaths were recorded in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus and in the neighboring central province of Hama, it said.
It accused the security forces and allied groups of participating in “field executions, forced displacement and burning of homes, with no legal deterrent.”
The violence erupted on Thursday when clashes broke out after gunmen loyal to Assad staged attacks on the new security forces.
At least 231 security personnel were killed in the ensuing clashes, according to their official toll. The Observatory said 250 pro-Assad fighters were killed.
The UN Human Rights Office said it had documented “summary executions” that appeared “to have been carried out on a sectarian basis.”
Interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) that toppled Assad, has vowed to prosecute those behind the “bloodshed of civilians” and set up a fact-finding committee.
The spokesman for the committee, Yasser Al-Farhan, has said Syria is determined to “prevent unlawful revenge and guarantee that there is no impunity.”
The authorities have also announced the arrest of at least seven individuals since Monday on suspicion of “violations” against civilians.
HTS, an offshoot of the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, is still proscribed as a terrorist organization by several governments including the United States.
Since Assad was toppled in December, many Alawites have lived in fear of reprisals for his brutal rule.
Morocco fights measles outbreak amid vaccine misinformation
- In Morocco, authorities have scaled up vaccination against measles in recent months in a bid to control the outbreak
- To tackle misinformation, Moroccan health officials have launched awareness campaigns, including in schools, to explaining the importance of vaccination
RABAT: Authorities in Morocco have been scrambling to contain an outbreak of measles, a contagious and potentially fatal disease that had nearly been eradicated in the kingdom but has rebounded as vaccination rates have fallen.
In Harhoura, a small coastal town near Rabat, 13-year-old Salma and her nine-year-old brother, Souhail, sit quietly in a public clinic, waiting for their second shot of measles vaccine.
Their grandmother, Rabia Maknouni, said it was after a campaign at school that the family realised they had been missing doses of the vaccine.
"We didn't know they hadn't completed their vaccination," she said. "Their parents panicked when they heard about the outbreak."
Measles is highly contagious, spreading through respiratory droplets and lingering in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area.
The disease causes fever, respiratory symptoms and a rash. In some cases, it also leads to severe complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation and death.
Even though vaccination remains the best protection against the disease, immunisation rates have fallen in recent years.
The vaccine hesitancy is driven by misinformation, which has lingered since the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Morocco, authorities have scaled up vaccination against measles in recent months in a bid to control the outbreak.
More than 10 million schoolchildren have had their immunisation status checked since October last year, said Mourad Mrabet, an official at the National Centre for Public Health Emergencies.
Since late 2023, authorities in the North African country have reported more than 25,000 measles cases and 120 deaths, Mrabet said.
The outbreak has raised concerns in France, Morocco's former colonial ruler and leading foreign investor and trade partner.
The French public health agency has described the epidemic as reaching "historic levels" and urged travellers to check their vaccination status before visiting the kingdom.
Moroccan authorities say the number of new infections has been steadily declining in recent weeks.
They have promised to continue their vaccination programme until late March with the aim of achieving 95-percent cover, sufficient for herd immunity.
But they acknowledge they still have some way to go. The health ministry said only about half of those requiring a booster had received one by early March.
In January, government spokesman Mustapha Baitas blamed "false information that fuels public fear of vaccines".
Mrabet attributed it to "the influence of the global anti-vax movement".
In the United States, growing distrust of public health policy and pharmaceutical companies has contributed to falling vaccination rates.
In February, an unvaccinated child died of measles in Texas, where an outbreak has been spreading.
And last week, an adult from New Mexico -- which neighbours Texas -- also died from the disease.
To tackle misinformation, Moroccan health officials have launched awareness campaigns, including in schools, to explaining the importance of vaccination.
The education ministry's head of health programmes, Imane El Kohen, said one of the "deceptive allegations" was the claim that the measles vaccine is a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine.
Hasna Anouar, a nurse in Harhoura, has been involved in vaccination status check programmes for years.
She said that before the Covid-19 pandemic, there was little resistance to routine childhood immunisations.
But now, some parents have developed a "fear of vaccines," she said. "We have to sit down with them and explain why these shots are necessary."
Health rights activist Ali Lotfi put the decline in the vaccination rate down to "lockdown and the fear of being contaminated in hospitals".
"Afterwards, the health ministry didn't do enough to address the backlog," he said.
