Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 119?

The United States is hopeful that Hamas will agree to free all hostages as Qatar, which is mediating the deal with Egypt, hinted at positive progress that could lead to a pause in the Gaza war.

“We hope that Hamas,.. will agree to a pause,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

“We have pursued this pause intensively. We have made clear it is a priority of the United States; other countries have made clear it a priority for all of these same reasons,” Miller said.

He added that such a pause would help with the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden speaks during a news conference at a NATO summit last month in Brussels. Biden declared the US will inject 15 BCM of natural gas to the world market in 2022, with more to come in the future. (credit: EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/REUTERS)

Hamas was noncommittal, explaining that it had not given a response to any of the parties.

Qatar: No deal yet

The head of the political bureau of the Islamist movement Taher al-Nono, told Reuters on Thursday. "We say that the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we cannot say that we have reached an agreement.”

At issue is Hamas’ agreement for the principled points hammered out on Sunday at a Paris meeting of intelligence chiefs from the US, Israel, and Egypt.

Speaking at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Qatari Foreign Ministry Majed Al-Ansari said that it could take a few weeks before any deal is agreed upon.

“The meeting in Paris succeeded in consolidating the proposals on the table into one proposal. That proposal has been approved by the Israeli side and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas side of the general framework. 

“It will represent a general understanding of how the next parts of the coming humanitarian pause would look like. It does not include a lot of the details that still need to be discussed.

“We are now at the point, that has alluded us for two months where both sides agree on the principles of what the pause would look like. There is still a tough road in front of us. Both sides now have agreed to a premise, that would lead to a next pause,” Ansari said, adding that it was a very “fluid situation.”

A Qatari official told Reuters, however, that “There is no deal yet. Hamas has received the proposal positively but we are waiting for their response.”

At a prayer breakfast in Washington US President Joe Biden said, “I’m engaged on this day and night and working, as many of you in this room are, to find the means to bring our hostages home, to ease the humanitarian crisis, and to bring peace to Gaza and Israel.”

He said, “I also see the trauma, the death, and destruction in Israel and Gaza. And I understand the pain and passion felt by so many here in America and around the world.”

Biden continued, “Not only do we pray for peace, we are actively working for peace, security, dignity for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”

Their comments fell in line with other optimistic comments that were bolstered by a week filled with high-level diplomatic activity beginning the Paris meeting, which was also attended by Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed Al-Thani. He then traveled to Washington where he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

On Wednesday Sullivan met with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. The potential deal caused far-right parties in the coalition to threaten to quit the government fearing that it could endanger Israel.

It is widely believed that the deal would be carried out in three phases, with the easiest phase dealing with the release of elderly, female, and child hostages. Two other phases would deal with healthy adult males, soldiers, and the bodies of those who died and or were killed in captivity.

Israel would be expected to release a high number of Palestinian security prisoners including terrorists found guilty of killing Israelis.

But the largest sticking point has been on the issue of whether Israel would pause the war or agree to a ceasefire. Hamas has insisted that the IDF must withdraw from Gaza and agree to a permanent ceasefire in exchange for a deal, with Israel rejecting such a possibility.

A deal done in February saw the release of 105 hostages, many of whom were women and children, in exchange for a week-long pause in the fighting.

Terrorists seized 253 hostages during a Hamas-led attack into southern Israel on October 7. Six of those held have dual Israeli-American citizenship.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A conflict that started on a tiny perimeter of land on Oct. 7 is, less than four months later, reverberating throughout the region, from Lebanon in the north to Morocco in the west, Iran in the east and Yemen in the south.

“This is an incredibly volatile time in the Middle East,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday at a press conference. “I would argue that we’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region since at least 1973, and arguably even before that.”

The epicenter of the Israel-Hamas conflict remains Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed, and where much of the population is displaced and at risk of famine. Hamas’ invasion of Israel killed some 1,200 people, and more than 200 soldiers have died in the months following Oct. 7. As the war has continued, momentum toward an extended truce and hostage release has mounted.

But because of the war, the broader region is changing, too. The rivalries, intimacies, and enmities among the different peoples and religious communities in the Middle East have been churning for millennia. Now, as in other times of crisis, they are threatening to erupt into a broader war that could ensnare the United States.

Here’s a rundown of how the Gaza war is sparking, or inflaming, conflicts across the region.

Iran’s proxies take aim at US troops 

The strike last weekend by an Iran-backed militia, which killed three American soldiers in Jordan, demonstrated how central Iran has become to the conflicts unfolding across the Middle East. Believed to be on the precipice of nuclear weaponization, Iran is the eminence grise in the current war: Hezbollah in Lebanon is its proxy and it has funded and trained Hamas and the Houthis.

Since Oct. 7,  Hezbollah has engaged Israeli forces in a constant exchange of fire. Syria, another Iran ally, has fired rockets on the Golan Heights, the plateau Israel seized in the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed.

Israel has fought back against Hezbollah and other threats. Iran and Syria blamed Israel for a strike last month in Damascus that killed five members of Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. Iran “reserves its right to respond to the organized terrorism of the fake Zionist regime at the appropriate time and place,” its foreign ministry said.

That strike came weeks after what Iran said was an Israeli attack on Damascus, which killed another top IRGC figure.

The strike on American troops came from an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. Since Oct. 7, those militias have launched more than 150 attacks on American troops, with the United States counter-striking against the militias’ bases. Like the Houthis and Hezbollah, the militias say they are motivated by Israel’s war with Hamas.

Iran also exchanged fire with Pakistan two weeks ago, aiming its strikes at separatist groups. Eleven people died in the strikes. 

Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said that Iran may be flexing its muscles as it feels besieged by American counterstrikes against its Iraq-allied militias as well as alleged Israeli strikes on Damascus. In addition, a massive Islamic State attack last month at a memorial for Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani killed nearly 100 people. 

“It has to do, I think, with Iran’s overall threat perception in the region rising. And at the same time, feeling the need – as a result of domestic and external pressure – to respond,” he told Al Jazeera.

Kelly Shannon, a member of the Atlantic Council think tank’s Iran Strategy Project, said recent Iranian-backed strikes were the country’s “attempt to project strength at home and to its allies and proxies, as well as to issue a warning to its enemies that it will use force to defend its interests.”

Alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted Sayyidah Zaynab, a stronghold of Iranian militias, near Damascus early on Friday morning, according to Syrian reports.

The strikes targeted the Sayyidah Zaynab area, an area which has been targeted several times by alleged Israeli airstrikes in recent months, according to the Syrian Capital Voice news site.

Sites near Aqraba, south of Damascus, were targeted as well, according to Nour Abo Hassan, a journalist in southern Syria.

Syrian state media had not confirmed the reports as of Friday morning.