What is the Gaza ceasefire ‘bridging proposal’ and will it work?
Protesters demand the immediate release of Israeli hostages outside a press event attended by US Secretary of State Blinken,Tel Aviv, 19 August 2024
Mat Nashed writes in Al Jazeera on 20 August 2024:
The United States’s top diplomat wrapped up his visit to Israel on Monday with a message for those pleading for an end to the war in Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he consulted with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who – the American official said – had accepted a “bridging proposal” for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The proposal ostensibly aims to bridge unresolved disputes between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in order to end the violence in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 40,000 people and uprooted nearly the entire 2.3 million population during the last 10 months.
Israel’s devastating war on Gaza began shortly after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which an estimated 1,139 people were killed and more than 250 taken captive. Despite continuous efforts this year to bring about a ceasefire, and even after a proposal announced by US President Joe Biden that he said was supported by Israel and has publicly been backed by Hamas, the US has now been forced to announce the bridging proposal.
Hamas has rejected the proposal, calling it an attempt by the US to buy time “for Israel to continue its genocide”, and urged a return to the previous proposal.
With Blinken travelling the Middle East, and a new potential round of talks in Cairo this week, let’s take a closer look at the latest proposal, and what the dispute between Israel and Hamas now centres on.
Permanent ceasefire?
Israel doesn’t want a permanent ceasefire, despite engaging in “ceasefire” talks. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to reserve the right to resume attacks on Gaza after Israeli captives have been retrieved. This fits with a longstanding Israeli military doctrine of carrying out “preemptive attacks” in occupied Palestinian territory to ostensibly weaken the threat coming from Palestinian fighters, as it often does in the occupied West Bank.
“Most Israelis can’t argue with what Netanyahu wants to do, which is to destroy Hamas, despite those being empty words that have no meaning,” said Ori Goldberg, an Israeli commentator on political affairs.