Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the Egyptian initiative for a short-term truce with the resistance movements in the Gaza Strip, which was announced by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Sunday evening.
Al-Sisi said during a press conference with his Algerian counterpart that it was “an initiative that aimed to move the situation and cease fire for two days during which four hostages (Israeli detainees) will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners (he did not specify their number).”
He added: “Then within ten days negotiations will be held to complete the procedures in the Strip leading to a complete ceasefire.”
A senior leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said in press statements that the movement’s officials “are waiting for the outcome of the Quartet meeting in the Qatari capital, Doha, and to explore whether it is consistent with our known vision for reaching a deal or not.”
He said: “The movement’s vision is fixed in this regard, which is an immediate ceasefire, ending the operations of genocide, starvation and displacement, the occupation’s withdrawal from the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, and providing relief and reconstruction.”
On Sunday, a meeting was held in Doha between the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns, the head of the Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) David Barnea, and the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, to begin negotiations to reach a new short-term agreement to cease fire in the Gaza Strip and release some Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the death toll from the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has risen to 43,020 dead and 101,110 wounded since October 7. The ministry said that the Israeli occupation committed five massacres against civilians in the Strip, of which 96 dead and 277 wounded arrived at hospitals during the past 48 hours.
In Lebanon, the National News Agency said that members of the Lebanese Civil Defense from the Qalaa Center were exposed to a warning artillery shell from the Israeli occupation forces, while they were extinguishing a fire in the olive groves in the town of Burj Al-Muluk in southern Lebanon, in order to prevent them from completing their mission, which forced them to withdraw.
The Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, followed up on the issue of the displaced, and made a series of calls to this end to check on their conditions, stressing the need to expedite the provision of all the requirements and needs for them.
In a related context, the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs in the caretaker government, Abdullah Bou Habib, said, during his speech on behalf of Lebanon before the ministerial meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean held in Barcelona, that “what worries us most today in Lebanon is the internal strife, as a result of the expansion of friction between the displaced Lebanese and the residents of the areas to which they were displaced,” noting that “if the war does not stop immediately, the displacement could lead to an explosion of the situation and the occurrence of societal clashes and large-scale migration.”
