David Ignatius, a security analyst for the Washington Post, quoted American officials: Washington believes that Yahya Sinwar agreed to the hostage deal, but Hamas is waiting for Iran’s response to Israel, as it will work to transform the arena of war.
@ZaidBenjamin5
Hamas is waiting for Iran's response... and Iran is waiting for Hamas' response
Opinion piece by David Ignatius of The Washington Post:
In the Middle East, the silence is deafening. A ceasefire agreement in Gaza is tantalizingly close, but negotiations are stalled. The risk of a devastating war between Israel and Iran has diminished, but the guns are still armed.
It is an anxious and painful moment - balanced between a breakthrough towards peace and a new descent into disaster.
It's scary: everywhere you look, you see dogs that don't bark.
In this fog of negotiations, what's really going on?
The answer to this question is always fraught in the Middle East, but I can share what I'm hearing from American and Israeli officials who are closely monitoring the crisis.
They describe a basket of diplomatic and military issues that remain unresolved, and the challenges that President Joe Biden and his team face over the coming week.
The first big problem, officials say, is that Hamas has remained silent on the “bridge proposal” drawn up by American mediators to resolve differences over a proposed 45-day ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.
American officials said on Wednesday that they have been waiting for four days for Hamas to answer basic questions, such as the names of the hostages who will be released, as American officials believe that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who is trapped underground in Gaza and is running out of ammunition and supplies, supports the agreement, which means The release of hundreds of Palestinians from Israeli prisons, the evacuation of wounded Hamas fighters, the welcome relief for Palestinian civilians after ten months of terrible suffering and the cessation of the Israeli offensive.
But Hamas appears to be playing a waiting game, perhaps hoping that Iran or Hezbollah will attack Israel - thus shifting the battlefield, and Iran seems likely to disappoint Hamas.
American officials believe that Iranian leaders have decided to postpone retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran late last month.
The good news here is that Iran appears to have been deterred by the massive American show of force.
The bad news is that Tehran is inciting its proxy, Hezbollah, to attack, as American officials fear, so what will Hezbollah do?
American officials believe that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, may have backed away from a plan to fire a barrage of missiles on Tel Aviv, which would have led to a region-wide disaster, but Nasrallah has vowed to avenge Israel's assassination of Fouad Shukr, his top military commander, last month. And he has many Israeli targets to choose from.
Stopping the Gaza nightmare is Biden's biggest challenge in his remaining months in office, and the pieces of the puzzle are in place. His team has drafted a three-phase peace plan that, if adopted, could begin a real process of reconstruction and recovery in Gaza. A US fleet to the region appeared to deter Iran, and Gallant told US officials that it was the largest US military effort to aid Israel since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
Now is Biden's moment. He needs to push Israel and Hamas to conclude the deal, and if he succeeds, it will be one of the most important achievements of his presidency.
An American newspaper revealed that Egypt rejected an Israeli proposal to establish 8 watchtowers on the Philadelphia axis.
The Wall Street Journal said that Cairo rejected an Israeli proposal to establish 8 watchtowers along the Philadelphia axis, and an American proposal to establish only two towers.
