On August 19 Hamas said that it had accepted the new ceasefire proposal presented on the 17th by Qatar and Egypt to renew talks ahead of the planned major Israeli assault on Gaza City. This is mostly based on US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff’s plan, to which Israel had reportedly agreed. Consequent to this Qatar and Egypt put pressure on Hamas to accept the proposal. However, on August 20, a day after Hamas accepted peace, Israel bombed Gaza City and seemed to be going ahead with its threat of a largescale offensive. This move by Israel leaves the outcome of the Qatar-Egypt peace plan uncertain.

The latest peace proposal, put together by Qatar and Egypt, envisages the release of 10 living Israeli hostages and 18 deceased hostages in exchange for 140 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 60 serving sentences of more than 15 years. Israel will also release all Palestinian minors and female prisoners. A ceasefire will be effective during which Israeli forces would redeploy to the lines specified in the Steve Witkoff proposal, on which the Qatar-Egypt plan is modelled. Following this, humanitarian aid would flow to the Gaza population.

The peace bids coincided with a massive demonstration of nearly 400,000 Israelis on August 17th in Tel Aviv, supported by a grassroot strike by nearly one million in the whole country. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had heard about the Qatar-Egypt proposal, hardliners like Itamar Ben-Gvir opposed the idea. However former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who was earlier Chief of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) recommended that Netanyahu accept the proposal.

Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians had worsened after Netanyahu’s Likud party teamed up with ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties in December 2022. His opponents had then said that Netanyahu was........

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