JERUSALEM (AP) 鈥 Israel and Hamas on Tuesday played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a cease-fire in Gaza, after U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel has agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages.
The president鈥檚 remarks came on the eve of the Michigan primary, where he faces pressure from the state鈥檚 large Arab American population over his staunch support for Israel鈥檚 offensive. Biden said he had been briefed on the status of talks by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, but said his comments reflected his optimism for , not that all the remaining hurdles had been overcome.
In the wake of Hamas鈥 , Israel鈥檚 air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated and displaced 80% of the battered enclave鈥檚 population.
Israel鈥檚 seal on the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food and other aid, has sparked alarm , according to the United Nations.
With U.N. truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France conducted an airdrop of food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them.
But alarm is growing over worsening hunger among Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians.
Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gaza鈥檚 Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra. He warned that infant mortality threatens to surge.
鈥淒ehydration and malnutrition will kill thousands of children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip,鈥 he said.
The U.N. Population Fund said the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in Gaza鈥檚 southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Premature births are also rising, forcing staff to put four or five newborns in a single incubator. Most of them do not survive, it said, without giving figures on the numbers of deaths.
Now the prospect of an invasion of Rafah has prompted global alarm over the fate of around 1.4 million civilians trapped there.
Talks to pause the fighting have gained momentum recently and were underway Tuesday. Negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a cease-fire that would see Hamas free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week halt in fighting and an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza.
The start of Ramadan, which is expected to be around March 10, is seen as an unofficial deadline for a deal. The month is a time of heightened religious observance and dawn-to-dusk fasting for hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. have flared in the past during the holy month.
鈥淩amadan鈥檚 coming up, and there has been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out,鈥 Biden said in an appearance that was recorded Monday.
In separate comments the same day, Biden said that he could take effect by next week.
At the same time, Biden did not call for an end to the war, which was triggered when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israeli officials said Biden鈥檚 comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the country鈥檚 leadership. A Hamas official played down any sense of progress, saying the group wouldn鈥檛 soften its demands.
The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren鈥檛 authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media, said Israel wants a deal immediately, but that Hamas continues to push excessive demands. They also said that Israel is insisting that female soldiers be part of the first group of hostages released under any truce deal.
Hamas official Ahmad Abdel-Hadi indicated that optimism on a deal was premature.
鈥淭he resistance is not interested in giving up any of its demands, and what is proposed does not meet what it had requested,鈥 he told the Pan-Arab TV channel Al Mayadeen.
Hamas has previously demanded that Israel end the war as part of any deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called 鈥渄elusional.鈥
In Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone separately with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss planning for post-conflict reconstruction and governance of Gaza.
Neither country is directly involved with the ceasefire negotiations but both will be critical in supporting what will an expensive, lengthy and difficult scenario when the fighting stops, particularly in winning popular Arab backing for security guarantees for Israel should it agree to talks on the creation of a Palestinian state.
In nearly identical statements, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken had discussed with the ministers the U.S. 鈥渃ommitment to achieving sustained peace through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel.鈥
At a news conference in Doha on Tuesday, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said his country felt 鈥渙ptimistic鈥 about the talks, without elaborating.
A senior official from Egypt has said the draft deal includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners 鈥 mostly women, minors and older people.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the proposed six-week pause in fighting would allow hundreds of trucks to bring into Gaza every day, including to the hard-hit north.
Biden, who has shown staunch support for Israel throughout the war, left open the door in his remarks for an eventual Israeli ground offensive in the city of , on the border with Egypt, where more than half of the enclave鈥檚 2.3 million people have fled under Israeli evacuation orders.
Netanyahu has said a ground operation in Rafah is an inevitable component of Israel鈥檚 strategy for crushing Hamas. This week, the military submitted for Cabinet approval operational plans for the offensive, as well as evacuation plans for civilians there.
Biden said he believes Israel has slowed its bombardment of Rafah.
鈥淭hey have to, and they have made a commitment to me that they鈥檙e going to see to it that there鈥檚 an ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafah before they go and take out the remainder Hamas,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 a process.鈥
Israel鈥檚 offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,700 people, most of them women and children, according to the . It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
The first and only cease-fire in the war, in late November, brought about 鈥 mostly women, children and foreign nationals 鈥 in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, as well as a brief halt in the fighting.
Roughly , but Israel says about a quarter of them are dead.
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Shurafa reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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