Rafah invasion: With defeat in sight, how can Netanyahu declare victory?
Smoke billows after an Israeli bombardment in Rafah, Gaza, on 6 May 2024
David Hearst writes in Middle East Eye on 7 May 2024:
Was there a deal? Was it, as some in the US administration say, a Hamas counteroffer? Are there two offers on the table or a deal from which the US backed away after seeing Israel’s response? This is the course of events that my sources with detailed knowledge of negotiations in Cairo and Doha gave me.
The Hamas delegation was in Cairo for some time. There was an initial paper to which Hamas gave its notes, as did the Israelis. But there was no agreement. Hamas decided to withdraw its delegation.
My sources tell me that the Hamas delegation was at the airport when Egypt came up with an offer that the group agreed to consider. The delegation moved to Doha on Sunday. Hamas then announced that it would hold a meeting on Monday to consider the offer presented by the Egyptians and the Qataris.
CIA director Bill Burns followed the Hamas delegation from Cairo to Doha. He was in Cairo for two days and then moved to Doha. He was expected to travel to Israel but delayed his departure to wait for Hamas’s response on Monday.
There were two minor textual changes to the document that the Egyptians had sent to the Hamas delegation at the airport, but they were regarded as not crucial to reaching an agreement. Middle East Eye has seen both versions.
Washington’s role
In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became nervous about what the Egyptians and Qataris would do with the presence of Burns in both cities. Netanyahu said Israel would proceed with the operation in Rafah regardless of whether there was agreement about a hostage and prisoner exchange.
The Israeli government’s decision to close down Al Jazeera was another indicator of Israel’s rejection not just of the latest offer, but also of Doha’s role as mediator. But questions linger about Washington’s involvement in, or knowledge of, the deal sent to Hamas by Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas’s confidence in being able to pursue this war is the one issue that neither the Israeli war cabinet nor Washington has publicly addressed
The English-language version of the offer sent to me clearly states that the guarantors of the agreement are Qatar, Egypt, the US, and the United Nations.
So did the US countersign the ceasefire deal that Hamas agreed to on Monday, or not? According to a source, “Burns was definitely not on holiday visiting Cairo’s casinos or going for a swim in Doha.”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby fudged the question, saying: “It’s safe to conclude that [the Hamas response] came as a result or at the end of these continued discussions that Director Burns was part of.”
But Kirby went on to say that the US was reviewing the response from Hamas, as if the offer the group signed had not been put to it by two other mediating governments, Egypt and Qatar – and as if the presence of Burns in both Cairo and Doha was purely that of an observer.
Divisions emerge
When it came, Hamas’s agreement to the latest version of the offer blindsided Israel. Everyone had been expecting Hamas to refuse it. Israel’s rejection was not a surprise.
What was surprising, however, was the involvement of the US in the deal that Israel rejected. After Burns shuttled between Cairo and Doha, the agreement that emerged “was not a counter-response”, one source told me. “It was the Egyptian-Qatari paper, with the understanding that the US supported it with the personal presence of Burns.”