Efforts to reach a cease-fire accord between Israel and Hamas after 10 months of war in the Gaza Strip have stalled after Hamas said on Aug. 14 that it wouldn’t take part in a new round of cease-fire talks slated to start the next day in Qatar.
That, in turn, dimmed hopes for a cease-fire that could hold back an Iranian attack on Israel in retaliation for the assassination last month of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. World powers have been diplomatically striving to avoid a broader war that an Iranian strike could trigger.
Israel said it would send a delegation to the Qatar talks, but Hamas said it wants to implement an earlier proposal rather than have more talks.
“Going to new negotiations allows [Israel] to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Israel, for its part, has been forging ahead with its Gaza offensive, with some hard-line cabinet ministers causing more controversy through actions that adversaries have seen as provocative.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. One of Islam’s holiest sites, the mosque was built atop the ruins of Judaism’s two ancient temples.
He was joined by the Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlaud and dozens of worshippers seeking to pray on that day’s Jewish holiday, Tisha B'Av, a fast commemorating the temples’ destruction and other Jewish calamities throughout history.
The Muslim authority administering the site, the Jordanian Waqf, allows Jews to visit but not to pray there. Many of the Jews did pray, prostrating themselves.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though, joined foreign nations in condemning Ben Gvir for his rogue move.
“The policy on the Temple Mount is directly subject to the government and its head,” Netanyahu said in a public statement. “There is no private policy of any minister on the Temple Mount—not of the Minister of National Security nor any other minister.”
New West Bank Settlements
Meanwhile, Israel published plans for one of its proposed new settlements in the West Bank, which many Israelis refer to as Judea and Samaria to emphasize ancient Jewish ties to the land, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Aug. 14.Smotrich said the move was a response to actions by Palestinian West Bank leadership and countries that have recognized a Palestinian state.
“No anti-Israel or anti-Zionist decision will stop the development of the settlement. We will continue to fight against the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state. This is the mission of my life,” Smotrich said.
Israel announced in June that it would legalize five outposts in the West Bank, establish three new settlements, and seize other land.
The Palestinian Authority, which exerts limited authority over the parts of the West Bank where Palestinians live, has condemned the seizures as ethnic cleansing. Israel rejects that charge.
Iranian Response
An Iranian response to Haniyeh’s assassination on July 31 and to that of the previous evening near Beirut of Fuad Shukr, the military head of another Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, has been awaited and feared for two weeks.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian on a phone call that there was a “serious risk of miscalculations, and now was the time for calm and careful consideration.”
Pezeshkian, though, rebuffed that message. “A punitive response to an aggressor is a right of nations and a solution for stopping crimes and aggression,” he said.
He said he was following the orders of the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has said Israel “paved the way for a severe punishment upon itself with this action.”
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied having any role in Haniyeh’s assassination. The head of Hamas was killed when a bomb exploded in the guest house bedroom where he was sleeping while in Tehran for Pezeshkian’s inauguration. Israel took credit for the airstrike targeting Shukr outside Beirut.
Other European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have also called on Iran not to retaliate, as has the United States.
The European leaders called for an agreement to end the war, the return of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian aid.
Demands that Iran not retaliate, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said, “lack political logic, are entirely contrary to the principles and rules of international law, and represent an excessive request.”
The United States, meanwhile, approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department said on Aug. 13.
The sale includes more than 50 F-15 fighter jets, advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, 120 mm tank ammunition, high-explosive mortars, and tactical vehicles.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
