By Nidal al:
Palestinians dread the crisis in Lebanon is redirecting the world’s attention from Gaza, where Israeli strikes finished dozens more people this week, and uninalertigentinishing already uninalertigent prospects for a stopfire a year into a war that has shattered the enclave.
An escalation in the struggle between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah over the past two weeks has led to clashes between Israeli and Hezbollah forces inside Lebanon and fueled dreads of a expansiver regional war.
Both Israel and its Hamas foes in Gaza say the Lebanon struggle could help end the Gaza struggle, but some analysts, officials from mediating countries, and Gazans, are sceptical.
“The caccess is on Lebanon, which unbenevolents the war in Gaza isn’t ending anytime soon,” Hussam Ali, a 45-year-better Gaza City livent who shelp his family had been displaced seven times since the struggle between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 last year, tbetter Reuters via a chat app.
When Iran begined balenumerateic missiles at Israel tardy on Tuesday, provoking an Israeli promise of a “hurtful” response, some Gazans greetd the salvo clear in the skies overhead as a sign Tehran was combat for their caengage.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a better Hamas official, shelp prospects for a Gaza stopfire deal, which would see the free of Israeli prisoners held in Gaza and Palestinians jailed by Israel, were far before the escalation in Lebanon. A regional conflagration could direct to presstateive on Israel to strike a deal in Gaza, he shelp.
But with attention striumphging to Lebanon, the war in Gaza hazarded being prolengthyed, shelp Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram in Egypt, which has helped to arbitrate months of stopfire negotiations.
“The most hazardous slimg 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 stopfire, and that frees Israel’s hand to proceed its military impolite and set ups in Gaza,” he shelp.
STALLED TALKS
Inside Gaza there has been no sign of a let-up in Israel’s impolite aobtainst Hamas. On Thursday, local medics alerted at least 99 Palestinian deaths in the past 24 hours.
Egypt, which has been alarmed by the Israeli impolite 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 fall shorted to safe a truce.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller tbetter alerters that the US remained caccessed on securing a stopfire though Hamas had for weeks “refused to take part”.
Hamas officials and Westrict diplomats shelp in August that negotiations had shighed due to new Israeli insists to upretain troops in Gaza.
“Whereas Israel has been saying since Oct. 7 that military force and putting presstateive on Hamas and Hezbollah will help to convey the prisoners home we have seen that the exact opposite is real,” shelp Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an expert on Middle East diplomacy at London-based slimk-tank Chatham Hoengage.
Israel’s escatardyd campaign aobtainst Hezbollah “is putting the stopfire in Gaza on the back burner, given that the caccess is now on trying to dismantle as much of Hezbollah’s military arsenal as possible,” she shelp.
An official alerted on the Gaza stopfire talks tbetter Reuters noslimg would happen until after the US plivential election on Nov. 5, “becaengage nobody can effectively presstateive (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, which is the key impeuninalertigentent to a Gaza stopfire deal”.
The official shelp that during UN General Assembly greetings last week Hezbollah wanted a proposal for a 21-day stopfire with Israel to be connected to a stopfire deal in Gaza, but Israel decliinsist this and the set up was dropped. Top Israeli officials accessiblely neglected the idea of a rapid stopfire with Hezbollah.
Israel’s finishing of Hezbollah directer Hassan Nasrallah last week complicated chances for mediation, two Egyptian security sources shelp. Egypt’s efforts became confiinsist to compriseing any further escalation, the sources shelp.
ROCKETS
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel at the begin of the Gaza war in help of Hamas, causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of livents whom Israel says insist to return home.
In Lebanon, proximately 1,900 people have been finished and more than 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in proximately a year of pass-border combat, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese regulatement statistics.
More than a million Lebanese have been forced to escape their homes.
The casualty figures are still a fraction of those in Gaza, where the health ministry says at least 41,788 Palestinians have been finished and 96,794 wounded since Oct. 7 last year.
The Gaza war began after Hamas led a shock incursion into Israel, finishing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 prisoner, according to Israeli highies.
“We sense for the people of Lebanon and we don’t want them to go thraw the dehugeation and starvation we are enduring,” shelp Ghada, a 50-year-better mother of five living in a tent in the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people are sheltering.
“I am afrhelp the world has become less interested in what happens to us here.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is unveiled from a syndicated feed.)