Sharm El-Sheikh’s negotiation on the future of Gaza also went on on the second anniversary of the massacre of 7 October, a date branded in the Israeli collective consciousness. And the first indications of the mediators, shared by the Palestinian faction, confirmed a “positive climate” in the indirect interviews with Israel to find a meeting point on the Trump level.
After the first two rounds on a technical level, the wait now focuses on the imminent entry into the field of higher level negotiators, such as the US correspondent Steve Witkoff and Premier Qatarino, while the White House continues to bet on a short agreement.
However, the road map for peace remains paved with pitfalls. From what emerged so far from Egypt, Hamas would be ready for disarmament but not to accept Tony Blair at the helm of an international administration of the Strip. Among the nodes to be dissolved also the times and ways of the withdrawal of the Idf and the names of the Palestinian prisoners to be inserted as a counterpart for the hostages.
“Hamas accepted very important things” and also “Netanyahu was very positive,” said Trump talking about his initiative in 20 points to end two years of war. “All parties push for an agreement”, echoed a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, while expressing caution on the results of the negotiation. And if the Israeli government continues not to transpire. His cards, some elements are filtered from the Palestinian field.
Instead, the clear rejection remains at the idea of an “International Transition Committee” led by the former British Prime Minister Blair, hated in many Arab countries for his support for George Bush’s war in Iraq. For the future “management of Gaza”, the Islamist movement imagines “negotiating with the ANP”: a negotiation, between the different Palestinian souls, which would be parallel to that conducted with Israel on everything else.
Yet Benyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly repeated that the organ chaired by Abu Mazen is not considered a credible and reliable interlocutor. The game of the exchange of prisoners also appears complicated. Hamas, who said yes in principle to release all the hostages in a single solution, first asks for a ceasefire “to recover” the kidnapped, “whose liberation would have happened within a week”.
It is not clear, however, if the faction will give up the request, considered unsuccessable by Israel, to free some prominent prisoners who are serving life sentence, such as the “Palestinian Mandela” Marwan Barghouti. Hamas also takes stock of the Idf retreat from the Striscia: sources from Cairo have made it known that it will have to be “complete” once the hostages are released. Israel instead imagines a progressive retreat, maintaining a military presence of some buffer areas.
We will talk about all this tomorrow in Sharm, with the Egyptian mediators and Qatarini (led by Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulhman Bin Jassim Al-Thani) who will be joined by a Turkish delegation led by the head of the secret services Ibrahim Kalin, and for the USA by Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president with important relations in the region.
Just Trump, meeting the Canadian premier Mark Carney in Washington, spoke once again of “real possibility of peace”, ensuring that to agreement achieved “we will do everything possible to ensure that everyone respects him”.
The pressing made so far, both on Hamas and on his friend Netanyahu, is the indicator that the tycoon does not see the time to set up a great agreement in the Middle East that sets off the approaching path of Israel to the countries of the region, on the furrow of the Abraham agreements. Starting with Saudi Arabia, the other great ally of the United States in this turbulent chessboard.