Politics Israel wants to increase military pressure on Hamas

While Israel is using increased military pressure to force the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip to make concessions in the hostage negotiations, supplies to the suffering civilian population are being hampered by the fighting and anarchic conditions.

According to the US military's regional command, the operation of a provisional port off the coast for the delivery of relief supplies has now been permanently suspended. An alternative route to Gaza is planned via the port of Ashdod in Israel.

No details were initially known. However, Sonali Korde from the US Agency for International Development was confident that the route via Ashdod would be practicable and an important route to Gaza. However, she added that there are still obstacles. "The biggest challenge in Gaza is the insecurity and lawlessness that impedes the distribution of aid once it gets into Gaza and to the border crossings," she said.

Netanyahu wants more pressure on Hamas

During a heated debate in the Israeli parliament, Israel's head of government Netanyahu defended his conduct of the war, according to the media. He said that further concessions would only be extracted from Hamas through even more military pressure. "We were told that Hamas was not prepared to release hostages without us first agreeing to end the war. Suddenly it agrees," said Netanyahu. "The more we keep up the pressure, the more she will give in. And that is the only way to free the hostages," he said.

Netanyahu's critics accuse the head of government of sabotaging the indirect negotiations with the Islamists to reach an agreement. He governs with ultra-religious and far-right coalition partners who refuse to make concessions to Hamas. Netanyahu, who is the subject of a corruption trial, is dependent on these partners for his political survival. On July 24, he will give a speech before both chambers of the US Congress on Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Israeli opposition leader Jair Lapid demanded that Netanyahu announce his agreement to a hostage deal during his speech in the USA. However, if he does not intend to do so, Netanyahu should cancel his trip to Washington, Lapid said according to the "Times of Israel". According to local media reports, the head of the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad, Daniel Barnea, said at a meeting of the security cabinet that young female hostages of Hamas had "run out of time" after more than nine months.

The young women in captivity "do not have time to wait for changes to the proposal under discussion", several Israeli media quoted Barnea as saying at the meeting behind closed doors. There are concerns that young hostages in the Gaza Strip have been raped by their captors. Around 120 abductees are still believed to be in the sealed-off coastal area, but many of them are no longer alive. Netanyahu reportedly wants changes to the proposal for an agreement currently on the table.

The three-stage plan envisages the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as well as ways towards a permanent ceasefire. Last week, Israeli negotiators traveled to Qatar to continue the negotiations. Qatar, Egypt and the USA are mediating between Israel and Hamas. Since then, however, no further high-level meetings have been announced. Participants in the indirect talks had recently shown cautious optimism.

Difficult supplies for the Gaza population

Meanwhile, supplying the people of Gaza continues to be extremely difficult. Trucks carrying aid supplies first reached the sealed-off coastal strip on May 17 via the provisional US port, which has now been closed. Since then, however, there have been repeated problems. Rough seas had severely damaged the pier belonging to the provisional port. The distribution of aid also proved to be more than difficult. Nevertheless, very large quantities of relief supplies reached Gaza, the US military emphasized.

However, the temporary port was only intended as a temporary solution from the outset. We are now entering a "new phase", said Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of the responsible regional command of the US military. It is assumed that larger quantities of aid supplies will reach the Gaza Strip via the new route in the coming weeks. Around 2300 tons were still stored in Cyprus and were waiting to be transported via Ashdod to the sealed-off coastal strip.

Cooper said that deliveries would begin in the coming days. Meanwhile, the US news portal "Axios" reported, citing Israeli and US officials, that the US, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank, held a secret meeting last week to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing in the south of the sealed-off Gaza Strip between Egypt and Gaza as part of a hostage and ceasefire agreement.

Report: Talks on opening Rafah crossing

According to US officials, the opening of the Rafah crossing could be a first step in a post-war strategy to stabilize the coastal strip, "Axios" reported. Israel and Egypt have not yet reached an agreement on how the important Rafah crossing should be reopened. Egypt wants PA personnel to operate the crossing in future, according to the report. Although Israel also wants people not associated with Hamas to manage the crossing, it rejects any official involvement by the PA.

While the USA wants the Palestinian Authority to be restructured and to regain control of the Gaza Strip, Israel's head of government Netanyahu is opposed to this. Critics accuse him of not developing a plan to stabilize and administer Gaza. In doing so, he is allowing the coastal area to sink into chaos. Israeli troops run the risk of being drawn into an endless guerrilla war by Hamas.

The war was triggered by the massacre in Israel carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other groups on October 7. They killed around 1,200 Israelis and deported around 250 other people to the Gaza Strip. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, at least 38,794 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war. The figure, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, cannot be independently verified at present.

SDA