A major Rafah military operation would make it difficult to continue ongoing hostage talks in Doha, Qatar warned as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to the region to advance a deal.
“Any operation in Rafah right now will be a humanitarian catastrophe,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Made Al Ansari told reporters. There is no direct link between the hostage negotiators in Qatar and a pending IDF Rafah military operation, but Israel has used the threat of one as a pressure lever to advance a deal to secure the release of the remaining 134 captives. A major Rafah operation before a deal, however, is expected to harm the talks. “Any escalation on the ground has its bearing on the talks” and one of such a magnitude as Rafah “will have a very serious bearing on the talks themselves,” he said, adding that in that situation it would be “difficult’ for negotiations to continue.Updating the war cabinet on the current state of the hostage deal
The Mossad chief returned to Israel Tuesday and according to KAN News, he updated the war cabinet that night.His team remained, to continue to hammer out the differences between their positions and that of Hamas with officials from Qatar and Egypt.
Both countries are mediating a deal, that would see some 40 hostages freed in exchange for a six-week pause to the war and the release of Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists. The process is expected to be plodding and could take several weeks. Ansari said that he was “cautiously optimistic” but noted that “It’s still too early to claim any particular success.” The most important indicator of progress was that the talks were ongoing, he explained. The conversation at this point is over the humanitarian pause and what is expected to be three phases of an agreement. He clarified that the issue of a permanent ceasefire would come up only in the second phase. Right now, he said, the focus is on the first phase and the humanitarian pause. During a press conference in the Philippines, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he planned to travel to Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week.On his agenda was a “push for an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
“As you know, we’re intensely engaged on that every single day. We’re doing everything we can to push that forward and to reach an agreement,” he said.