Gaza’s future casts a cloud Over U.S.-Israel ties

The 11 week-long war between Israel and Hamas is only getting more complicated as the days continue. And as the fighting persists, leaders on all sides of the dispute, in addition to those who aren’t even engaged in the fighting, will be forced to make some critical decisions about the way forward.

The most immediate task for the Israelis is to free the roughly 130 hostages still under the grip of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and unaffiliated criminal groups in Gaza. While this has been a top Israeli priority since the first day of the war, the issue is an ever-tightening noose around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s neck at a time when Israel’s longest serving head-of-state is facing down political threats from all directions. Last week’s incident in which Israeli troops in Gaza City shot and killed three hostages, purportedly bare-chested, and waving a white flag, has angered hostages’ families who have long since become disillusioned with Netanyahu’s war strategy and angered by what they perceive as a lack of compassion for their situation.

The killings have also re-centered the Israeli government’s focus and boosted a willingness to enter into a second round of truce talks with Hamas, the very terrorist group it has vowed to destroy. Netanyahu previously blocked Mossad Chief David Barnea’s request to return to Qatar for talks, but apparently had a change of heart days later. CIA Director William Burns met with Barnea and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Poland earlier this week to probe ideas on how to entice Palestinian militant outfits in Gaza to release the remaining hostages. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top political leader, traveled to Cairo to discuss the subject with Egyptian intelligence officials as well. Something is clearly brewing; the Israelis reportedly put in an initial offer that would suspend military operations for a week and release more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Hamas freeing about 40 hostages. Time will tell whether the talks succeed.

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