Gershon Baskin

Another round of ceasefire and hostage talks, this time in Doha, has ended in disappointment. This is in large part because Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is unlikely to accept any agreement that Hamas could present as a victory – and has handcuffed the Israeli mediators with conditions that appear impossible for Hamas to accept.

Beyond the substance of any potential agreement between the two sides is the emotional juice of so much of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship: the battle for national dignity and honour. Huge quantities of explosives have been dropped on Gaza by Israel since 7 October because of the humiliation felt by all Israelis, and especially Israel’s leaders and military. So much of this war over more than 10 months has been fought on both sides as a war of revenge. Nonetheless, it also has major strategic consequences for Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian people, the nations of the region, and the world’s major powers – above all the United States.

Neither side will tolerate the necessary concessions until the US, Egypt and Qatar exert their considerable influence, Gershon Baskin argues in full here:

George Chidi

While top US diplomat Antony Blinken is in Tel Aviv, back in America political protests have begun over the Gaza conflict.

As Kamala Harris prepares to be formally nominated, organisers are expecting widespread protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

A protest of up to 1,000 marchers combining support for the Palestinian cause and abortion rights gathered at the iconic corner of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue in Chicago Sunday evening. The protest is the first of several demonstrations, legally permitted and not, planned for the convention.

You can read a full report by George Chidi in Chicago here:

A ceasefire would halt the deadliest war ever fought between Israelis and Palestinians, a conflict that has destabilised the Middle East and sparked worldwide protests. Associated Press has compiled a primer on the current situation.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials. The vast majority of the population has been displaced, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people are packed into squalid tent camps, the health sector has largely collapsed and entire neighbourhoods have been obliterated.

The Hamas-led attack on 7 October killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw militants abduct around 250 hostages. Some 110 hostages are still in Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying around a third are dead. Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has launched drones and rockets into Israel on a near-daily basis since the start of the war, and Israel has responded with airstrikes and artillery. The violence has escalated, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah has vowed an even more severe attack — without saying when or how — in response to the killing last month of Fuad Shukur, one of its top commanders, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Iran and Israel traded fire directly in April, and many fear a repeat if Iran makes good on its threat to avenge the killing of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Hezbollah has said it would halt its operations along the border if there is calm in Gaza.

What are the sticking points?
The two sides have been working to an evolving proposal for a three-phase process in which Hamas would free all the hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire.

President Joe Biden came out in favour of the proposal in a 31 May speech and the UN Security Council approved it. But since then, Hamas has proposed “amendments” and Israel has asked for “clarifications,” with each side accusing the other of making new demands it cannot accept.

Hamas wants assurances that Israel will not resume the war after the first batch of hostages — around 30 of the most vulnerable — are released. Israel wants to ensure negotiations do not drag on indefinitely over the second phase, in which the remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, are to be freed.

Netanyahu has also demanded in recent weeks that Israel maintain a military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border which it says is necessary to stop Hamas and other militias rearming and regrouping.

Who decides whether there is a ceasefire?
Any deal would have to be accepted by Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar, who helped mastermind the 7 October attack and became Hamas’ overall leader after Haniyeh was killed.

Netanyahu faces intense pressure from families of the hostages and much of the Israeli public to make a deal. But far-right leaders in his coalition have threatened to bring down the government if he concedes too much.

Sinwar, meanwhile, is hiding in Gaza, likely deep inside Hamas’ vast network of tunnels, and has stuck to a hard line throughout the talks. He also tops Israel’s most-wanted list, raising questions about what happens if he is killed.

In the past it has taken several days for Hamas’ negotiators to send proposals to Sinwar and receive his feedback. That means that even when the work of hammering out the latest proposal is completed, it would likely take a week or more for Hamas to formally respond to it. When Hamas accepted an earlier proposal in May, spontaneous celebrations erupted — but those hopes were soon dashed.

Aid groups have called for a ceasefire since the start of the war, saying it’s the only way to ensure desperately needed food and humanitarian aid reaches Gaza.

We have more of what Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv.

“This is a decisive moment – probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Agence France-Presse quoted the top US diplomat as saying during a meeting with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.

Blinken said President Joe Biden had sent him “to get this agreement to the line and ultimately over the line”.

“It is time for it to get done,” Blinken said.

It’s also time to make sure that no one takes any steps that could derail this process.

We’re working to make sure that there is no escalation, that there are no provocations, that there are no actions that in any way could move us away from getting this deal over the line, or, for that matter, escalating the conflict to other places, and to greater intensity.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, is scheduled to meet later on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.

The visiting secretary of state said it was a “fraught moment” in Israel and warned against any moves that could heighten regional tensions, following threats from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to avenge the recent killings of two militant leaders.

Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said Israelis wanted to see the return “as soon as possible” of hostages still held in Gaza since the 7 October attack that triggered the war.

“There is no greater humanitarian objective, and there’s no greater humanitarian cause, than bringing back our hostages,” Herzog told Blinken.

Welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider crisis in the Middle East crisis. Here’s an overview of the latest.

The US secretary of state has declared it to be “maybe the last opportunity” to get hostages held in Gaza out after he arrived in Israel to push for a ceasefire agreement.

After landing in Tel Aviv Antony Blinken was quoted as saying that it was a “decisive moment” for the truce talks.

Making his ninth trip to the Middle East since October, the top US diplomat is to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders. Blinken aimed “to press any and all parties that it’s important to get the remaining pieces of this across the finish line”, a US official said.

The push comes amid heightened fears of an anticipated Iranian and Hezbollah attack against Israel and the threat of an all-out regional war.

Netanyahu earlier traded blame with Hamas for delays in reaching a ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 19 people in Gaza on Sunday, including six children, Palestinian health authorities said. The children and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, the officials said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

In Israel, police were investigating an explosion that killed one person in Tel Aviv on Sunday, a spokesperson said, reportedly appearing to suggest the incident could have been a militant attack.

“As a result of the explosion, one person, whose identity is still unknown, was killed, and another person was moderately injured.”

In other news:

• An attack at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Sunday killed an Israeli man, a hospital said, three days after a deadly raid on a nearby Palestinian village. Doctors made several attempts to save his life, the Beilinson Hospital said. The Israeli military said a “terrorist” had “attacked a civilian, stole his weapon and made his escape” in the Kedumim settlement, in the northern West Bank. Local officials identified the victim as a resident of the settlement which is close to the village of Jit, where the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli settlers had killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man in an attack on Thursday.

• Israeli air force jets attacked Hezbollah military buildings in southern Lebanon in the areas of Aita al-Sha’ab, Beit Leaf and Khula on Sunday night, the Israel Defence Forces said on X. An aerial video accompanied its post on Monday.

• Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel intensified over the weekend, with an Israeli attack on Saturday one of the bloodiest for civilians since fighting began in October. Ten Syrian workers and their family members were killed in what Israel said was a strike on a Hezbollah weapons depot in Nabatieh, south Lebanon. In response, Hezbollah launched a 55-missile barrage at the town of Ayelet HaShahar, in northern Israel.

• Three Unifil peacekeepers were lightly injured in an explosion on Sunday while on patrol in the Lebanese border town of Yarin. A source in Unifil (UN interim force in Lebanon) said they believed the soldiers were injured by a nearby Israeli airstrike but that they were still investigating the incident.

• Israel is conducting a “robust investigation” of suspects accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner, the foreign affairs ministry said on Sunday, adding it was committed to upholding international legal standards on the treatment of detainees. The UN special rapporteur on torture on Friday condemned what she called a “particularly gruesome” case of the alleged sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soldiers and said the perpetrators must be held accountable. Israeli media reports said the alleged abuse was of a member of an elite Hamas unit at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

• A UK Foreign Office official has resigned over the UK’s refusal to ban arms exports to Israel because of alleged breaches of international law. Mark Smith, a counter-terrorism official based at the British embassy in Dublin, said he had resigned after making numerous internal complaints – including through an official whistleblowing mechanism – but receiving nothing but pro-forma responses.

• US Central Command said on Sunday its forces destroyed a Houthi uncrewed aerial vehicle in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.