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Blinken casts new doubt on ceasefire bid; nearly 40% of minors killed in global conflict from Gaza - UN

Blinken casts new doubt on ceasefire bid; nearly 40% of minors killed in global conflict from Gaza - UN
Bloomberg
By Bloomberg
13 Jun 2024
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken cast fresh doubt on the prospects that Israel and Hamas would agree to a ceasefire proposal put forward by the US, saying some of Hamas’ latest demands were unacceptable.

Children in Gaza accounted for nearly 40% of minors killed in conflicts globally last year, according to an upcoming United Nations report on cases it says it has verified, casting blame on both Israel and Hamas for the surge in deaths. 

Group of Seven (G7) leaders will call on Hamas to accept the ceasefire deal outlined by US President Joe Biden, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg.

Blinken casts doubt on ceasefire hopes after Hamas responds


Secretary of State Antony Blinken cast fresh doubt on the prospects that Israel and Hamas would agree to a ceasefire proposal put forward by the US, saying some of the militant group’s latest demands were unacceptable.

Blinken offered the downbeat assessment after meeting senior leaders in Qatar, who along with Egyptian officials have mediated indirect talks between the two sides in a bid to end the war, which began when Hamas stormed into Israel on 7 October.

Hamas had responded to a proposal backed by President Joe Biden on Tuesday, though it didn’t say publicly what changes it wants and Blinken declined to provide details. 

“I’m not going to obviously characterise or describe what they’re looking for,” Blinken said. “All I can tell you, having gone over this with our colleagues, is that we believe that some of the requested changes are workable, and some are not.” 

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that while some of the changes requested by Hamas were “minor, and not unanticipated”, others “differ more substantially” from the proposal presented late last month.

“The United States will now work with the mediators, specifically Egypt and Qatar, to bridge final gaps,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the Group of Seven meeting in Italy, adding that the US aimed “to bring this process to a conclusion”.

“Our view is that the time for haggling is over,” Sullivan said. 

Blinken declined to say whether the US would put any pressure on Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after being asked repeatedly whether Israel should show more flexibility over a permanent ceasefire that Hamas has demanded. He made clear the blame lies with Hamas, which is labelled a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.

“Israel accepted the proposal as it was, as it is; Hamas didn’t,” Blinken told reporters in Doha on Wednesday alongside Qatar’s leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. “The longer this goes on, the more people will suffer and it’s time for the haggling to stop and the ceasefire to start; it’s as simple as that.” 

The US has been unable to explain why Israel, which has said it won’t stop until Hamas is destroyed, would agree to a proposal that lets the group survive. Hamas, meanwhile, has made clear it wants Israel to withdraw from Gaza for good, something Netanyahu’s government has said is off the table.

The latest impasse underscored the challenges of Biden’s approach. He laid out a three-phase peace plan on 31 May that he said was backed by Israel, even though Israeli leaders themselves have been noncommittal about whether they approve all or part of it.

Calls to end the fighting have grown amid the scale of destruction in Gaza, including more than 37,000 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, as Israel seeks to crush the militant group, which killed 1,200 and abducted 250 others in the October attack. 

The first phase of the Biden-presented proposal calls for a ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas of Gaza, while the second stage includes a permanent end to hostilities. Some of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attack would be released in the initial phase, and the rest in Phase 2.  

One person familiar with the talks said earlier that Hamas wanted assurances that an automatic transition would take place from one phase of the agreement to another. The New York Times reported earlier on Wednesday that Hamas wanted firm timetables for a short-term truce and a permanent one, as well as a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Read more: Israel’s pursuit of Hamas in Gaza seen unswayed by Gantz exit

“This is an issue we’ve been struggling with for a very long time,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “How to ensure that we bridge the gap between those two fundamental differences between what Hamas wants, as a permanent ceasefire, and what Israel wants: the hostages returned.” 

Gaza home to 40% of minors killed in conflict last year - UN 


Children in Gaza accounted for nearly 40% of minors killed in conflicts globally last year, according to an upcoming United Nations report on cases it says it has verified, casting blame on both Israel and Hamas for the surge in deaths. 

The killing of more than 2,000 Palestinian and 40 Israeli children helped push violence against children to “extreme levels” in 2023, Secretary-General António Guterres said in the report, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News and is scheduled to be released publicly later this month.  

The data only include deaths that the UN can verify, it said, adding that it was still making determinations on thousands of additionally reported Palestinian deaths in the first three months of the war. It’s also looking into reports of some 3,900 children hurt when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.  

The Israel-Hamas war “presents an unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children, with hostilities leading to an increase in grave violations of 155%,” Guterres wrote in the report. The UN said both the Israeli army and Hamas’ military wing, as well as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were not doing enough to protect children in Gaza. 

The UN notes the report “does not represent the full scale of violations against children, but provides United Nations-verified trends”. To vet reported violations, the UN relies on a monitoring and reporting mechanism that requires local monitors to independently verify claims. 

The annual report by the UN looks at cases of violence against people under 18 years old in conflicts worldwide. This is the first time Israel and Hamas have been included in the so-called blacklist of actors that “commit grave violations” against children in the 20-plus years the report has been presented to the UN Security Council.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who has been highly critical of the organization, said last week that including Israel in the report was an “immoral decision.” 

G7 leaders to urge all sides to accept Biden’s ceasefire deal


Group of Seven leaders will call on Hamas to accept the ceasefire deal outlined by Biden, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg.

In the communiqué they issue at the end of their annual meeting, taking place this week, the allies will also urge Israel to de-escalate from a “full-scale military offensive” in Rafah — and may include language that urges those steps to be in line with provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice. 

The wording by the G7, specifically name-checking Biden, appears designed to corner Netanyahu into formally accepting the ceasefire proposal on which he’s also been equivocating. The language used in the communiqué says Israel “is ready to move forward” — a way to add public pressure on the country’s leader.

Civilians have been sheltering in Rafah, where the United Nations has described conditions as catastrophic, and the US and other Israeli allies have voiced their concern over the scale of ground operations there.

“We urge countries with influence over Hamas” to help ensure it accepts a ceasefire, the leaders of the G7 will say.  

Another item in the draft that has yet to receive unanimous agreement relates to the recognition of the Palestinian state as part of a two-state peace process. “We note that the recognition of a Palestinian state, at the appropriate time, would be a crucial component,” reads the provisional language.

G7 allies will condemn moves by Israel to order the evacuation of the East Jerusalem offices of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UNRWA. Some governments, including Italy, which holds the G7 presidency this year, have resumed funding the agency after Israel alleged some of its staffers collaborated with Hamas. The UN is continuing its own investigations on the UNRWA. 

Frontline CEO sees ships avoiding Red Sea even with a ceasefire


It was “naive” to assume merchant vessels would start sailing through the Red Sea again if there was an agreement to end the war between Israel and Hamas, the boss of a major oil-tanker company said on Wednesday. 

Any deal would be fragile and offer no guarantee that seafarers would be safe travelling through the region, according to Lars Barstad, the chief executive officer of Frontline Management AS, which runs one of the world’s largest fleets of giant supertankers.  

Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking merchant vessels since late last year, ramping up assaults after US and UK strikes on Houthi positions. Traffic through the area is down by about 70% compared with early December as ships reroute to sail thousands of kilometres around Africa, according to Clarkson Research, a unit of the world’s biggest shipbroker. DM  
Read more in Daily Maverick: Israel-Palestine War

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