Main events on August 21st
- Israel’s attacks have continued across Gaza, including a strike on Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, which killed six people, four of whom were children.
- Eighty-three percent of those killed in Israel’s war on Gaza have been civilians, The Guardian and Israeli news outlets +972 and Local Call have found, citing classified Israeli military intelligence figures.
- Hamad Hospital announced that it received the bodies of three people killed by Israeli forces, along with 91 others who were wounded while seeking aid.
- The Palestinian Interior Ministry has denounced Israel’s push to seize Gaza City as a “death sentence” for the more than one million people living there.
- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says he has directed negotiators to immediately initiate talks for the release of all captives in Gaza and an end to the war, but only if the terms are acceptable to Israel. There is no immediate indication that Israeli negotiators are travelling for talks.
Netanyahu proposing ‘negotiation under fire’ with US approval
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has likened Netanyahu’s announcement about relaunching purported Gaza truce talks while the Israeli military intensifies its assault on Gaza City to “negotiation under fire”.
“There will be no stoppage of the fighting. There will be no breaks in the genocide. Hamas is going to have to make up its mind as Israel kills dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Palestinians moving forward [and] as it transfers a million Palestinians southward in Gaza,” Bishara said.
“Israel is now dictating all the terms, and it’s not listening to anyone, and it has a green light from Washington.”
Bishara added that Israel doesn’t intend to allow real negotiations to take place. Instead, it plans to dictate its demands to Hamas, with no regard for the fate of the Israeli captives still held in Gaza.
“It’s going to try to rescue whatever it can rescue through war, and if not, it’s just going to continue with this dictating of its conditions to Hamas while carrying on with its genocide.”
Israel seeing mass protests but Netanyahu ‘doesn’t care’
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, says demonstrations inside Israel calling for the release of Gaza captives and an end to the war are getting bigger.
But he noted that the Israelis who are taking to the streets are not part of Netanyahu’s base, which means the Israeli prime minister cares very little about their views.
“He doesn’t care what they think, he doesn’t care how much pressure they [exert] because, at the end of the day, they are not going to vote for him if does – or if he does not – release the captives alive,” Bishara explained.
Instead, Netanyahu is working with his far-right coalition in mind, Bishara said.
“He is a warmonger, [has] been from the beginning, and has wasted everyone’s time talking about diplomacy and deals and the day after [the war],” he said of the Israeli leader.
