As Gaza crisis mounts, Palestinian leaders meet in Qatar, Egypt peace talks stymie

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas are meeting in Qatar as they push forward to develop a unified Palestinian position on a cease-fire deal with Israel, PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram on Thursday.

Erekat said that the PLO is currently speaking with Doha-based Hamas leader Khalid Mashal, but declined to give any further information on the talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, said on Thursday that Israel would not consent to a cease-fire deal until its military had successfully demolished all tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel, an operation that Israel says would take several more days.

International pressure to put an end to the bloodshed continues to mount as by early Thursday afternoon, the 24th day of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, the Palestinian death toll surged past 1,400, according to Gaza emergency services — the vast majority of them civilians. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians have been killed so far.

After another United Nations school-turned-shelter was shelled on Wednesday, killing 16 people and injuring over 100, a fiery UNRWA statement was issued during a Security Council meeting on Thursday, condemning the killing of children “as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza.”

The organization has so far lost eight of its staff members during Israel’s bombardment.

The agency’s Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl asserted that the school’s location was communicated to the Israeli army 17 times, adding, “children [are] killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.”

While the Israeli government’s spokesperson Mark Regev told the BBC that the shelling of the school was undergoing investigation, he claimed that there was “hostile fire on our people from the vicinity of the school.”

The United States condemned "the shelling of a UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians, including children, and UN humanitarian workers." However, Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Cairo last week in a failed attempt to push for an Egypt-backed cease-fire deal, has repeatedly defended Israel’s right to “self-defense” and to keep its troops on the ground in Gaza.

On Wednesday, UNRWA’s spokesperson in Gaza Chris Gunness broke down on air during an interview with the Qatari Al-Jazeera news channel while discussing the shelling of the UN’s Jabaliya school.

As Gunness concluded the interview saying, “The rights of Palestinians, even their children, are wholesale denied, and it’s appalling,” he began sobbing audibly in the background as one of his colleagues rushed to comfort him.

One of Gunness’ recent tweets read, “UNRWA is overwhelmed in #Gaza we have reached breaking point, our staff are being killed our shelters overflowing. Where will it end?” His latest tweet put the number of displaced citizens in Gaza at 236,374 in 86 shelters, with an average shelter population of 2750 with noticeable diseases breakout.  

As Palestinian factions continue to meet in Qatar, Egypt is still trying to push for the cease-fire deal proposed earlier this month by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s administration, though negotiations have so far proved fruitless. A Palestinian delegation that includes Hamas leaders and representatives from other resistance groups was scheduled to arrive in Cairo to continue talks on the deal, but the meeting has reportedly been postponed due to inter-faction disagreements.

The delegation was to include Cairo-based Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, Palestinian Authority and Fatah movement representative Azzam al-Ahmed and Islamic al-Jihad movement representative Zeyad Nakhaleh, according to Al-Ahram.

The question of disarmament is one of the major points of contention that has purportedly stymied the emergency meeting, Palestinian and Egyptian sources told Al-Ahram.

The main cease-fire proposals currently on the table demand that Hamas lay down its arms, a condition that Hamas asserts is contradictory to its mission as an armed resistance group.

The problem of opening the Rafah border crossing between Sinai and Gaza has also stalled negotiations between Egypt and Hamas. While the Palestinian group insists the crossing should be unconditionally opened for humanitarian reasons, the Egyptian authorities demand that 1,000 Palestinian Authority Republican Guards be stationed on the Palestinian side of the crossing for Egypt to consent to keep it open.

Egypt has faced international condemnation for its hesitancy to keep the Rafah crossing open in light of alleged security concerns, despite the mounting humanitarian crisis on the other side of the border. To date, 840 people have been allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, according to the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA).

On Thursday, Egypt allowed 104 injured Palestinians to cross through Rafah to receive treatment in Egyptian hospitals, MENA said.

Over the past few days Iran has castigated Egypt for its refusal to keep the crossing open, reported the privately owned Al-Arabiya news site. In particular, Iran rebuked Egypt for its sluggishness in issuing permits to transport the injured through the Rafah crossing, and to allow humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza. One hundred tons of Iranian aid is still waiting Egyptian approval to be released, said Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdullahian.

Egypt responded that that the Iranian officials didn’t allow enough time for permits to be issued.     

Also on Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry met with chief officials in the ministry’s Arab world division to discuss efforts to end Israel’s assault.

Shoukry instructed the ministry officials to continue facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to the embattled Palestinian enclave, MENA reported, and to closely follow up on ongoing cease-fire talks.