As the death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza climbed past 23,000 – including nearly 10,000 children – according to the latest figures from the Hamas-controlled health ministry, the Palestinian militant group released a series of videos showing operations in the northern Gaza Strip. Analysts commented that Hamas was keen to emphasise, contrary to claims by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), it still has operational capabilities in the north of the enclave.
Meanwhile attacks by Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militant groups continue in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, as well as against US bases in Iraq and Syria as part of an ongoing campaign to harass and expel US troops.
Antony Blinken returned to the region for another round of shuttle diplomacy, putting on a determinedly optimistic face as he insisted after a meeting with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that Israel could still normalise relations with Saudi Arabia. Visiting the West Bank this week, Blinken also restated Washington’s commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Of course, a major hurdle to the “two-state solution” is the inconvenient fact that two of the biggest players in any peace agreement along those lines would be Israel and Hamas. Hamas has always refused to recognise the state of Israel, while Israel’s Netanyahu government is being kept in power with the cooperation of the extreme right Religious Zionism party.
Amnon Aran, an expert in Israeli politics at City, University of London, says that the party’s leaders – national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich – flatly reject any cooperation with the Palestinians. But, significantly, Aran also believes that they will also prevent any real progress at other regional peace initiatives. This includes a joint US-French gambit that aims to reduce tensions between Israel and Lebanon by finally realising a deal originally mooted as a way of ending the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
That would involve a new land demarcation agreement specifying where and how the two sides could deploy forces across the Israel-Lebanon border. It is already backed by UN security council resolution 1701 from 2006, which would........