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SvennoJ on 16 February 2025
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Ex-Israeli negotiator says truce deal could have been reached last March

Oren Setter has said Israel missed two opportunities to secure a Gaza truce and secure the release of captives from Gaza last year.

“In my view, we missed two opportunities to sign an agreement… in March and July”, said Setter, who resigned from the Israeli negotiating team in October, in remarks broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12.

“We did not do everything we could to bring them back as quickly as possible,” he said.

Setter also said he thinks there is only a “limited window of opportunity to reach an agreement now … and if we don’t take advantage of it, it will take months until another window of opportunity arises”.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office swiftly rebuked Setter’s claims in a reply to Channel 12, saying: “Setter’s claims that an agreement could have been reached earlier are devoid of any factual basis.”

It could have been reached December 2023, as that is when Hamas first proposed the current ceasefire deal. Heck the ceasefire in November should never have been aborted.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67589259

Throughout the week-long ceasefire, Mr Netanyahu has come under pressure, particularly from right-wing elements in his government, to re-start the war - something Israel has continually made clear it intended to do once the agreement had come to an end.

The right-wing pressure to restart the war is there again, as well as the intent not to proceed to phase 2, but this time no Biden to give the green light, the Israeli military and public are tired of the war and the world is now a lot more aware of what's actually going on in Gaza.

Likely phase 1 will be drawn out, Israel will keep some troops in Gaza, will keep destroying homes and infrastructure under the radar and will keep up the blockade while hindering aid as much as possible.

And Trump will keep on blaming the Arab countries for not coming up with a better plan than his ethnically cleansing plan for Gaza...


Where do talks for a second phase of the ceasefire stand?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment with his defence minister on Saturday night to talk about how they are going to move forward with the ceasefire deal.

The country’s security cabinet is set to meet on Sunday to discuss that.

But reports within Israeli media indicate that Netanyahu wants to prolong and extend phase one of the deal, rather than moving on to phase two, for which negotiations have been largely stalled.

They were supposed to begin on day 16 of phase one, which was weeks ago, but have largely been stalled because of a lot of elements. These include Trump’s idea for the US to own Gaza and forcibly displace and expel the Palestinians who live there to Jordan and Egypt. Now, this suggestion has been rejected by both countries and all other countries in the region.

However, the US secretary of state is now in Israel for his first visit to the region since assuming the cabinet position, and he supports Trump’s idea, as does Netanyahu, and as do members of the far-right government.

But the families of the Israeli captives, and members of the Israeli public as well as the opposition say this deal needs to go through, that there cannot be a return to the fighting because the deal is the only way to ensure the release of Israeli captives.


UNRWA chief says agency carries out ‘government-like’ activities in Gaza, West Bank

Philippe Lazzarini has told reporters that the “core activities” of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) are “government-like”, making it different to other UN agencies.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Lazzarini said, “Ultimately, the substitute of the agency would be functioning public institutions”.

He noted that most UNRWA staff have civil servant-like roles, such as teachers, nurses and engineers.

“There is absolutely no UN agency which is geared to provide, in the duration, at this scope, public-like services,” he said.

Which is exactly why Israel wants to get rid of UNWRA, total destruction of infrastructure and public institutions to make life so miserable people will leave.