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    Joe Biden is desperate for this war to end – but neither Netanyahu nor Hamas is in any hurry | Jonathan Freedland

    Beware cornering a US president anxious about re-election. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored that advice in his dealings with Joe Biden, and this week his country learned the price.It came in the revelation that Biden had withheld the supply of about 3,500 bombs, refusing to let US munitions play a part in an Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge. The president was at pains to say he was not giving up his “ironclad” commitment to Israel. Instead, it was just the specific, long-threatened Rafah operation that he would not back with weapons. “We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” Biden told CNN. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”To understand why this is such a big deal, remind yourself of the people and the countries involved. The US is Israel’s most crucial ally. Israel’s former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin used to say that his country’s number one strategic asset was not this or that weapon – not even its unconfirmed, and undenied, nuclear arsenal – but its relationship with Washington. For many decades, the US has served as Israel’s chief arms supplier and diplomatic protector. And yet in the space of less than six weeks, Washington has withheld its veto at the UN security council, allowing a resolution to pass in late March that Israel wanted blocked, and now it has closed the doors to at least part of its armoury.What’s more, these actions were taken by a man who is, by some distance, the most personally devoted supporter of Israel ever to sit in the Oval Office. Biden is a Democrat from the era when the notion of a restored Jewish homeland in the Middle East – promising an end to two millennia of exile and persecution – would turn US liberals misty-eyed. It takes little prompting for Biden to boast that he has met every Israeli leader since Golda Meir. Unlike past presidents, his affinity for Israel is not solely the product of electoral calculation: as his Jewish supporters put it, it’s in his kishkes. It’s in his guts.Meanwhile, Netanyahu came to prominence in the 1980s as an Israeli diplomat who spoke fluent American. He offered himself then and since as an expert on the US political landscape, a crucial skill for a would-be Israeli leader. For decades, his message to the Israeli electorate has been that only he – who stands in “another league” above his domestic rivals – can be trusted with the all-important US-Israel relationship.But look at the state of it now. Biden has become the first US president in more than four decades to deny Israel military aid in this way. (Ronald Reagan conveyed US fury after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 by delaying a consignment of fighter planes.) And why has he done it? Because, under Netanyahu, a growing section of the US public is souring on Israel as never before.It’s true that a bedrock level of support for the country exists that may surprise those seeing daily footage of US campuses in ferment. When Gallup asked Americans in March where their sympathies lay, 51% stood with Israel, while 27% backed the Palestinians. But among Democrats and young people, it’s the Palestinians who prevail, by eight-point margins in both cases.Those are the numbers that weigh on Biden and his re-election team, as they face the unravelling of the coalition that defeated Donald Trump in 2020. A period of newly intense suffering in Gaza will alienate yet more of the voters they need to win. The White House asked Netanyahu to show them a plan that would achieve a goal they regarded as legitimate – the removal from Rafah of Hamas’s last remaining battalions – but without risking mass civilian casualties. Netanyahu could not do it. Which is why Washington has resorted to a more direct means of making him stop.It’s become a test of strength that Biden cannot afford to lose. He made an all-out attack on Rafah a red line: if Netanyahu crosses it, that makes Biden look weak. Facing an opponent, Trump, determined to make strong v weak the defining choice of the coming election, he cannot let that stand.But still Netanyahu refuses to buckle, telling his people ahead of Israeli independence day that they will fight alone, without US arms, with their fingernails, if they have to. He wants to sound Churchillian, but these are words of weakness, not strength. For he is pulled in two directions: Washington wants him to stay out of Rafah, while his far-right coalition partners, the ultra-nationalists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, insist he go in hard, to finish the job and win a “total victory” over Hamas.US support may be essential for Israel’s national interest, but in a contest of Biden v Ben-Gvir, there was only going to be one winner. Without the latter’s support, Netanyahu loses his coalition. Suddenly, he will have to face the voters itching to punish him for the failures that led to 7 October, as well as the courts, for a resumed trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Which is why he will always buckle to the bigots to his right. It may have Netanyahu’s name on it, but this is Ben-Gvir’s government now.It’s the same logic that has led Netanyahu to drag his feet in talks to broker a ceasefire and release the Israeli hostages still held in the darkness by Hamas. Biden wants him to do a deal, because Biden needs this war over. The Israeli public want him to do a deal, because they are desperate to bring the captives home. But Ben-Gvir is the man who opposed the last and only agreed hostage release deal, back in November. He prefers to keep pounding Gaza, harder and harder, in search of an illusory and impossible victory. And because that’s what Ben-Gvir wants, that’s what Netanyahu gives him – even if it means pushing Biden into an ever tighter corner.Still, Biden and Netanyahu are not the only players in this bleak drama. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, has his own calculations, his own determination to remain in charge. Those who have studied him closely believe his priority is not so much an end to the killing of innocent civilians – on the contrary, the more Gazans who die, the more damage that does to the international standing of his enemy, Israel – but rather a scenario that allows him to claim victory. Sinwar thought he had that earlier this week, with the deal Hamas loudly accepted. The stumbling block is the agreed duration of any cessation of violence. Sinwar does not want it to be temporary, even if that would save many lives and ease the misery of Gaza. He wants a declaration that the war is permanently over. And for that he can wait.And so there is no deal, because neither Netanyahu nor Sinwar believes what’s on offer serves their interests. As the former US state department official Aaron David Miller puts it: “The only party that’s really in a hurry is Biden.” Though that’s not quite right. Also in a hurry are the hostages and their families, whose agony has endured for more than 200 days, and the civilians of Rafah, huddled in tents, grieving their tens of thousands of dead, without running water or sanitation. They’re in a hurry too. But no one is listening to them.
    Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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    U.S. Ship Carrying Aid for Gaza Departs From Cyprus

    An American vessel carrying aid intended for Gaza has departed from Cyprus, the Pentagon said on Thursday, but the temporary floating pier constructed by the U.S. military is not in place to unload the food and supplies meant for the enclave.Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a news briefing on Thursday afternoon that while the construction of the floating pier and the causeway has been completed, weather conditions have made it unsafe to actually place them off the coast of Gaza.General Ryder said that the aid on the vessel, called Sagamore, eventually would be loaded onto another American motor vessel docked at Ashdod, the Roy P. Benavidez. It would take the aid to the floating pier system as soon as it is installed, he said, and then delivered to Gaza.Sagamore appeared to be anchored at the Israeli port of Ashdod by late Thursday evening, according to VesselFinder, a ship tracking website. For now, the aid for Palestinians, desperately needed, is roughly 20 miles from the nearest Gazan border crossing.“While I’m not going to provide a specific date, we expect these temporary piers to be put into position in the very near future, pending suitable security and weather conditions,” General Ryder said.Israel has prevented the construction of Gaza’s own international seaport, prompting the United States and another aid group, the World Central Kitchen, to create their own systems for getting aid into the enclave by sea.But aid groups and experts have frequently criticized the maritime efforts as costly and complicated ways to deliver aid, citing trucking as a more efficient way to get food inside Gaza. After Israeli strikes killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, the group paused its maritime operations there. The food charity has since said it would restart operations in Gaza with the help of Palestinian aid workers.More food is needed in Gaza. The director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said recently that some areas are already experiencing a famine. More

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    Inside the White House Scramble to Broker a Deal in Gaza

    The flurry of actions underscores how fluid the situation in the region is as President Biden and his team try to ultimately end the war that has devastated Gaza.Over the course of a few hours, the news from the Middle East came into the White House Situation Room fast and furious.Israel orders 100,000 civilians out of Rafah in prelude to invasion.Hamas “accepts” cease-fire deal, potentially precluding invasion.Israel conducts strikes against Rafah, possibly opening invasion.The war-is-on-off-on-again developments on Monday left White House officials scrambling to track what was happening and what it all meant. At the end of the day, they came to believe, each of the moves signaled less than originally met the eye, but reflected efforts to gain leverage at the negotiating table with a clear resolution not yet in sight.In fact, Hamas did not “accept” a cease-fire deal so much as make a counteroffer to the proposal on the table previously blessed by the United States and Israel — a counteroffer that was not itself deemed acceptable but a sign of progress. At the same time, Israel’s strikes in Rafah evidently were not the start of the long-threatened major operation but targeted retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks that killed four Israeli soldiers over the weekend — and along with the warning to civilians, a way to increase pressure on Hamas negotiators.The flurry of actions underscored how fluid the situation in the region is as President Biden and his team try to broker a deal that they hope will ultimately end the war that has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of combatants and civilians, inflamed the region and provoked unrest on American college campuses. Over the last few days, the talks went from high hopes that a deal was close, to a fresh impasse that seemed to leave them on the verge of collapse, to a renewed initiative by Hamas to get them back on track.“Biden is continuing all efforts to thread multiple needles at once,” said Mara Rudman, a former deputy Middle East special envoy under President Barack Obama who is now at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. The president is still warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that a “Rafah ground invasion is a terrible idea,” she said, while also “pressuring Hamas in every way possible to get hostages out and more humanitarian aid in.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Officials Describe Pact Hamas Has Embraced as U.S.-Israel Proposal With Small Changes

    The proposal for a hostage-prisoner exchange and cease-fire that Hamas said on Monday that it could accept has minor wording changes from the one that Israel and the United States had presented to the group recently, according to two officials familiar with the revised proposal.The officials said that the changes were made by Arab mediators in consultation with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and that the new version keeps a key phrase, the eventual enactment of a “sustainable calm,” wording that all sides had said earlier they could accept.The two officials said the response from Hamas was a serious one, and that it was now up to Israel to decide whether to enter into an agreement. The proposal, they said, calls for Hamas to free hostages — women, the elderly and those in need of medical treatment — in return for a 42-day cease-fire and the release of a much larger number of Palestinian prisoners. Israel had sought 33 hostages, but it is not clear how many women and elderly are still alive, and the first tranche could end up including remains.That would be the first of three phases of reciprocal actions from each side. In the second phase, the two sides would work toward reaching a “sustainable calm,” which would involve the release of more hostages, the officials said. Both officials acknowledged that the warring parties would likely clash over the definition of “sustainable calm.”One of the officials, in the Middle East, said that Hamas viewed the term as an end to the war, with Israel halting its military actions and withdrawing troops from Gaza. The officials said that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was expected to push back against that definition.One official said that the negotiating parties agreed to the term “sustainable calm” weeks ago, after Israel objected to any reference to a “permanent cease-fire.” Israeli officials have consistently said they oppose any agreement that explicitly calls for that or for an end to the war.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cease-Fire Talks Between Israel and Hamas Again at an Impasse

    The latest round of negotiations between Israel and Hamas hit an impasse on Sunday as mediators struggled to bridge remaining gaps and a Hamas delegation departed the talks in Cairo, according to two senior Hamas officials and two other officials familiar with the talks. An Israeli official also confirmed the negotiations had stalled and described them as being in “crisis.”For months, the negotiations aimed at achieving a cease-fire and a release of hostages have made little progress, but signs the two sides were coming closer to an agreement appeared over the last week. Israel backed off some of its long-held demands and a top Hamas official said the group was studying the latest Israeli offer with a “positive spirit.”But the setback over the weekend meant Palestinians living in miserable conditions in Gaza would not experience an imminent reprieve and the families of hostages held by militants would have to wait longer for the freedom of their loved ones.The main obstacle in the talks was the duration of a cease-fire, with Hamas demanding it be permanent and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel expressing openness to only a temporary halt in the fighting.Hamas blamed the lack of progress on Mr. Netanyahu, who vowed again in recent days that the Israeli army will invade Rafah, the southernmost town in the Gaza Strip, with or without an agreement.“We were very close, but Netanyahu’s narrow-mindedness aborted an agreement,” Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said in a phone interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Parts of Gaza in ‘Full-Blown Famine,’ U.N. Aid Official Says

    Cindy McCain, the director of the World Food Program, said starvation is entrenched in northern Gaza and is “moving its way south.”The leader of the World Food Program said that parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “full-blown famine” that is spreading across the territory after almost seven months of war that have made delivering aid extremely challenging.“There is famine — full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” Cindy McCain, the program’s director, said in excerpts released late Friday of an interview with “Meet The Press.” Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American leading a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort who has said that there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.She did not explain why an official famine declaration has not been made. But she said her assessment was “based on what we have seen and what we have experienced on the ground.”The hunger crisis is most severe in the strip’s northern section, a largely lawless and gang ridden area where the Israeli military exercises little or no control. In recent weeks, after Israel faced mounting global pressure to improve dire conditions there, more aid has flowed into the devastated area.On the diplomatic front, negotiations resumed in Cairo on Saturday aimed at reaching a cease-fire and an agreement to release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. A delegation of Hamas leaders traveled to the Egyptian capital, the Palestinian armed group said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Rebuilding All Destroyed Gaza Homes Could Take 80 Years, U.N. Report Says

    Rebuilding all the homes destroyed by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip could take until the next century if the pace of reconstruction were to match what it was after wars there in 2014 and 2021, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday.Citing data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the U.N. report said that as of April 15, some 370,000 homes in Gaza had been damaged, 79,000 of which have been destroyed. If those destroyed homes were rebuilt at the same pace as they were after the two previous wars — an average of 992 per year — it would take 80 years, according to projections in the report from the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.The report detailed the war’s socioeconomic impact on the Palestinian population and said “the level of destruction in Gaza is such that the required assistance to rebuild would be on a scale not seen since 1948” to replace public infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.The report said that even if Israel were to allow five times as much construction material into Gaza after this war as it did after the war in 2021 — “the most optimistic scenario” — rebuilding all of the destroyed homes would still take until 2040. That projection does not account for the time it would take to repair the hundreds of thousands of homes that were damaged but not destroyed.The cost of rebuilding Gaza is increasing “exponentially” each day the fighting continues, Abdallah Al Dardari, the director of the U.N.D.P.’s regional bureau for Arab states, speaking over a video call from Amman, Jordan, said at a news conference on Thursday.Mr. Al Dardari said that before “some sort of normalcy” can be established for Palestinians in Gaza, an estimated 37 million tons of debris must be cleared to allow for the construction of temporary shelters and, eventually, the rebuilding of homes.The report also found that the unemployment rate for Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza surged to roughly 46 percent from about 26 percent after six months of war.Over those six months, poverty rates in the Palestinian territories more than doubled, to an estimated 57.2 percent from 26.7 percent. That means 1.67 million Palestinians were pushed into poverty after the war began, the report said. Its estimates were based on a poverty line of $6.85 a day.The effects of the war on Palestinians both in and out of Gaza “will be felt for years,” the report said. More

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    Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel from Lebanon

    Hamas’s military wing said on Monday that it had launched a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, an apparent attempt by the group to signal that it is still capable of striking within Israel’s borders even as it studies the latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said in a statement that it had targeted an Israeli military position in Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in Israel’s far north, with a “concentrated rocket barrage” from southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement that most of the roughly 20 launches that crossed the border had been intercepted, and that it had responded by striking the source of fire. There were no injuries or damage, the military said.Though Hamas is based in Gaza, many of its leaders are exiled in Lebanon, where the group has a sizable presence and operates largely out of Palestinian refugee camps. Since the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, Hamas has occasionally launched rocket attacks into northern Israel from within Lebanon’s borders, though its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has launched far more. Both groups are backed by Iran. Israel has also targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon in deadly strikes.Walid al Kilani, Hamas’s spokesman in Lebanon, said the attack was “the minimum duty” given Israel’s continued attacks in Gaza. “We know that Hezbollah is doing its duty and more, but the battlefield requires everyone to participate,” Mr. Kilani said.The launches on Monday, although muted in their impact, highlighted Hamas’s continuing ability to threaten Israel with rocket fire despite more than 200 days of a devastating Israeli air and ground offensive that has decimated the group’s military capabilities in Gaza. Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the attack was likely an attempt by Hamas to signal that it was “still part of the fight.” While it was largely symbolic, it could also be a means to apply pressure amid the Gaza cease-fire negotiations, he said.Data compiled by the online website Rocket Alert — which tracks warnings of rocket launches using Israeli military figures — shows that there were just 37 alerts in April in response to detected rocket fire from Gaza, compared to around 7,300 in October at the onset of the war. More than six months into the conflict, the data shows a significant drop-off in the number of warnings of rockets from Gaza.Alerts indicating rocket fire from Lebanon, however, have remained largely steady, the data shows. Most of those are launched by Hezbollah, but Hamas continues to launch attacks from Lebanon with Hezbollah’s blessing.Amin Hoteit, a military analyst and former brigadier general in the Lebanese army, said the latest attack was a sign of the “integrated front of operations” among Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in the region.Hwaida Saad More