When Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel late on Tuesday, provoking an Israeli promise of a “painful” response, some Gazans welcomed the salvo visible in the skies overhead as a sign Tehran was fighting for their cause.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said prospects for a Gaza ceasefire deal, which would see the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians jailed by Israel, were distant before the escalation in Lebanon. A regional conflagration could lead to pressure on Israel to strike a deal in Gaza, he said.
But with attention swinging to Lebanon, the war in Gaza risked being prolonged, said Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram in Egypt, which has helped to mediate months of ceasefire negotiations.
“The most dangerous thing isn’t that the media attention is going somewhere else, it is the fact that no one in the world is now talking about a deal or a ceasefire, and that frees Israel’s hand to continue its military offensive and plans in Gaza,” he said.
STALLED TALKS
Inside Gaza there has been no sign of a let-up in Israel’s offensive against Hamas. On Thursday, local medics reported at least 99 Palestinian deaths in the past 24 hours.
Egypt, which has been alarmed by the Israeli offensive on the other side of its border with Gaza and has lost billions of dollars in Suez Canal revenues during the war, is frustrated that its mediation efforts have failed to secure a truce.
