In response to a report that Egyptian treatment led to the failure of the final round of conversations in early May, an Iranian state official furiously threatened to leave Cairo’s mediation role on Wednesday.
In a statement released on Tuesday, CNN, citing anonymous sources, claimed that Egypt changed the conditions of a possible deal between Israel and Hamas to allow some hostages to be freed and to put pause to Israeli self-defense procedures in Gaza after gaining Jewish support, leading to Hamas terrorists signing a completely different deal. Other functions to the discussions, including Washington and Qatar’s government, apparently reacted with shock and outrage to the “freelancing.”
The discussions have been ongoing imperfectly since the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, in which Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killed 1, 200 civilians, abducted an estimated 250 people, and engaged in common acts of group murder, rape, murder, and another horrors. According to Jewish officials, about 130 people have been held hostage by Hamas since October 7; numbers vary depending on how many are still alive.
A terrible video of five captives, all women soldiers, evidently taken by Hamas terrorists of their loved ones who are evidently suffering from torture and being taken hostage on Wednesday was released by their families. The people urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration to accelerate efforts to open the victims.
Hamas officials shocked the world on May 6 when they announced a peace deal and later disclosed terms of an agreement that Israeli members claimed lacked much resemblance to what they thought was at the table. Some at the moment speculated that the management of leftist President Joe Biden, who is also participating in the discussions, had never properly informed Jerusalem of what Hamas was requesting of the agreement. Apparently, Hamas leaders described the term as being circulated by Egypt and Qatar as negotiators.
In the end, the agreement failed because Israeli officials criticized the peace agreement’s type as “unrealistic” and ordered military operations to be launched in Rafah, the southern city in Gaza. Following the extraordinary invasion and mass murder committed by Hamas in the country on October 7, leaders of Israel have argued that eradicating Hamas’s criminal system in Rafah is crucial to the country’s national security. Israeli men have discovered at least 50 caves since the Rafah operation’s starting, allowing Hamas extremists to enter Egypt.
Following the alleged confusions in early May, agreements between Israel and Hamas stalled.
The bomb CNN record from Tuesday suggested that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s management, rather than the Biden administration, was inextricably to blame for the conflict.  , CNN cited unknown “people familiar with the discussions” as its sources for the claim.
The anonymous “people familiar” claimed that an Egyptian intelligence agent identified as Ahmed Abdel Khalek had allegedly “duped” the other parties by claiming that the ceasefire agreement that Hamas ended up announcing on May 6 was not what the Qataris or Americans believed had been submitted for a potential final review.
According to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, Abdel Khalek allegedly told Israelis that Hamas was another country. More of Hamas ‘ demands were reportedly incorporated into the original agreement that Israel had made secretly to secure Hamas ‘ approval, according to the source. But the other mediators were not informed, nor, critically, were the Israelis”.
The incident reportedly embarrassment the Biden administration and the Qatari emirate, which CNN claimed excused itself and solely blamed Egypt for the misunderstanding in an exchange with the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency.
On Wednesday, an Egyptian official with the country’s State Information Service criticized the CNN report, even making the claim that Egypt might give up its mediatorship in the wake of the disparaging report.
The official, Diaa Rashwan, wrote in a statement on social media on Wednesday, citing Reuters’s report on the incident and the” trying to cast doubt and offend Egypt’s mediation efforts.”” Attempts to cast doubt and offend Egypt’s efforts will only lead to further complications of the situation in Gaza and the entire region, and may push Egypt to completely withdraw from its mediation efforts,” the official said.
Rashwan continued, claiming that Egypt was only invited to the Hamas-Israel talks due to “inssistence” from America and Israel.
At the time of writing, it is unclear how serious Egypt is about ending discussions. On Thursday, following the CNN report and Rashwan’s comments, the Arabic newspaper al- Araby al- Jadeed reported that Egypt was privately “testing the waters” with Hamas and Israel to see if any will existed to return to talks, according to the , Times of Israel.
According to an anonymous source, the Israeli newspaper also reported that the country’s “war cabinet” on Wednesday approved indirect negotiations with Hamas to free the remaining hostages after the release of the video of the female soldiers, citing an anonymous source.
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