CIA head says more detailed Gaza truce plan due in days
CIA director William Burns says negotiators are working on coming up with “creative formulas” to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi (R) meeting CIA Director William J. Burns (L) at the Al-Ittihadiya Palace in Cairo, Egypt, 07 April 2024. EPA/Egyptian Presidential Office
The head of the CIA, who is also the chief US negotiator for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip and release of hostages held by Hamas, says a more detailed ceasefire proposal will be made in the next several days.
After 11 months of conflict in Gaza, CIA director William Burns said he was working very hard on “texts and creative formulas” with mediators Qatar and Egypt to secure a ceasefire, by finding a proposal which satisfies both parties.
“We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see,” said Burns, speaking at a Financial Times event in London alongside Richard Moore, head of the United Kingdom’s MI6 foreign spy agency, in an unprecedented joint public appearance.
Burns added that it was a question of political will and he hoped leaders on both sides recognised “the time has come finally to make some hard choices and some difficult compromises”.
He said 90 per cent of the paragraphs had been agreed but the last 10 per cent were always the hardest.
“My hope is that you know, they’ll recognise what’s at stake here and be willing to move ahead on that basis,” he said.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 killing 1200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, while Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s health authorities have said, largely levelling the coastal enclave.
Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 48 hours, local medics said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battled militants in the territory.
An Israeli air strike on the Halima al-Sa’diyya school compound serving as a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia urban refugee camp killed at least eight people and wounded 15 others, medics said.
The Israeli military said the strike had targeted a Hamas command centre inside the compound.
It accused the militant group of repeatedly exploiting civilians and civilian infrastructure for military purposes, an allegation Hamas denies.
Five more people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City.
Later on Saturday, an Israeli strike killed four people and wounded 25 others at Amr Ibn Ala’as school, which also houses displaced families in the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said the air strike targeted a command centre operated by Hamas gunmen in the compound that had previously served as a school.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes had killed so far 28 people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah groups said they had fought Israeli troops in Gaza City, in central areas and in the south with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and in some incidents detonated bombs to target tanks and other army vehicles.
The two warring sides continued to blame one another for the failure of mediators to broker a ceasefire.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was incumbent on both Israel and Hamas to make concessions to reach a deal.
On Saturday, senior Hamas official Hossam Badran said the group had made no new demands and remained committed to a July 2 proposal put forward by the United States, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attaching new conditions that would not end the war.
Netanyahu says it was Hamas that introduced unacceptable conditions.
Despite the deadlock, the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in about 25 years.
Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.
UN officials said they were making progress, having reached over half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip.
A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.
Reuters
