US President Joe Biden made a surprise announcement on Friday saying that Israel had launched a new peace proposal that would bring about a permanent ceasefire and end the war in Gaza – a plan that Biden said Hamas has no choice but to accept to end the conflict, and which comes just hours after the Israeli army began its final assault on the last bastion of Rafah.
‘Israel has offered a comprehensive new proposal. It’s a roadmap to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages,’ the US president said in a public appearance, eight months into Israel’s major offensive on the Palestinian enclave. Biden explained that Israel’s proposal would begin with a six-week first phase in which Israeli forces would withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza.
This first phase would include a ‘full and complete cease-fire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,’ Biden said. During those six weeks, both sides would begin negotiations on a lasting ceasefire, and the truce would be extended beyond that time frame if peace talks continue. Palestinian civilians would be able to return to their homes – including northern Gaza – and humanitarian aid would be increased to 600 trucks per day, while the international community would provide temporary shelters for those displaced by the Israeli offensive.
During the second phase of the plan, Israel would withdraw its forces completely from Gaza over a further six weeks, and Hamas would release the remaining hostages, including the male soldiers (something it has so far refused to do). If both sides comply, this would lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities. In the third phase of the plan, a major Gaza reconstruction project (houses, hospitals, schools, etc.) would be launched for 3-5 years, with international guarantees that Hamas would not rearm; in this final phase, the bodies or remains of any hostages held by Hamas and killed during the conflict would also be handed over.
Biden: ‘It’s time for this war to end’
‘As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary cease-fire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, the cessation of hostilities permanently,’ Biden said in a televised appearance from the White House, in which he addressed Hamas saying it ‘needs to take the deal’ given that the Palestinian group is ‘no longer capable’ of carrying out large-scale attacks against Israel. ‘It’s time for this war to end, for the day after to begin,’ the US president said, stressing that ‘we can’t lose this moment’ to achieve peace in the region.
So far proposals for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza have run up against a major obstacle: Hamas has demanded in exchange for releasing all hostages that any negotiations lead to a permanent ceasefire and an end to Israel’s offensive on the Strip, including a full withdrawal of Israeli troops, while the Netanyahu government has so far refused to consider anything other than a more or less permanent truce to exchange hostages for prisoners, and to allow in partial humanitarian aid.
The peace proposal announced today, which comes a day after Hamas announced that it was willing to negotiate a ‘comprehensive’ peace if Israel would cease its ‘aggression’, could be the result of the strong pressures facing Israel‘s increasingly internationally isolated government, with Netanyahu facing possible war crimes charges at the ICJ. But the main pressures would undoubtedly have come from Biden himself, since the war in Gaza and his silence on the killings of Palestinians has threatened to turn his own Democratic voters against him, just months before a crucial US presidential election in which the 81-year-old POTUS will again face Trump.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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