Israel-Hamas war: France, Jordan, Egypt call for cease-fire

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he doubted Israel would attack Rafah before new talks next week in Washington. 

"I don't anticipate any actions being taken before those talks; for that matter, I don't see anything imminent," he told a joint news conference with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a "date" was set for a ground offensive in Rafah, vowing to go ahead despite international concerns over 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in the city.

The US will again make the case that major military operations in Rafah would be "extremely dangerous for civilians who have been caught in harm's way," Blinken said.

US Secretary of State said that Israel has not shared a date for an operation with the United States. "No, we do not have any date for an operation, at least one that's been communicated to us by the Israelis," he told reporters.

Blinken also said that the US has a "very serious" truce offer for Hamas that should be accepted, without going into details about what the offer would entail. 

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Britain's position on arms sales to Israel remained unchanged after the latest assessment of the government's legal advice.

"The latest assessment leave our position on export licences unchanged. This is consistent with the advice that I and other ministers have received," Cameron said at press conference with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, in Washington.

Last week three former senior UK judges joined more than 600 members of the British legal profession in calling for the government to halt arms sales to Israel, saying it could make Britain complicit in genocide in Gaza.

Britain supplied 42 million pounds (€49 million or $53 million) of arms to Israel in 2022.

A deadly, mass famine in Gaza would likely accelerate violence and ensure a long-term conflict, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing Tuesday. 

Six months into Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' October 7 terror attack on southern Israel, the devastated enclave faces the risk of widespread famine and disease. 

In December 2023,  the UN's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned that famine may occur in Gaza by the end of May 2024 "if an immediate cessation of hostilities and sustained access for the provision of essential supplies and services to the population did not take place."

Asked by a lawmaker what the impact would be from a deadly mass famine, Austin said: "It will accelerate violence, and it will have the effect of ensuring that there's a long-term conflict."

"It doesn't have to happen. We should continue to do everything we can, and we are doing this, to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance," Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He added that an Israeli failure to separate the Palestinian people from Palestinian Islamist group Hamas "would just create more terrorism."

Nevertheless, Austin defended Israel against accusations that it was committing genocide in Gaza. "We don't have evidence of that," Austin said.

The foreign minister of Israel has accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of "sacrificing the economic interests of the people of Turkey in order to support Hamas," after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israel.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Ankara has "unilaterally violated" trade agreements and that Israel "will respond in kind," promising retaliatory trade restrictions on Turkish products.

Turkey said on Tuesday that it would be imposing restrictions on exports to Israel covering 54 products including construction materials such as cement, steel, iron, marble, brick and aluminium, as well as fertilizer and aviation fuel.

"This decision will remain in place until Israel declares a cease-fire [in Gaza] immediately and allows adequate and uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza," the Trade Ministry announced on social media.

The trade measures come a day after Ankara said Israel had blocked an attempt by the Turkish air force to drop aid into Gaza, after which Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan vowed reprisals which would be implemented "step by step" and "without delay."

After years of thawing relations, Turkey has become one of the harshest critics of Israel's war on Gaza, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan branding Israel a "terrorist state."

Erdogan has defended Hamas — which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the European Union and others — as "a liberation group."

The Palestinian militant group Hamas said early on Tuesday that a new truce framework proposed by Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators on behalf of Israel does not respond to Palestinian demands, but that it would still be considered.

According to reports by the Reuters and AFP news agencies, the three-part proposal features a six-week halt in fighting to facilitate an exchange of female and child hostages held by Hamas for up to 900 Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

In a statement, Hamas said it "appreciates" the mediators' efforts during talks in Cairo, Egypt, but described the proposal as "intransigent," saying it doesn't address Palestinian demands.

Late on Monday, a Hamas source told AFP that those demands included the return of displaced Palestinian civilians to northern Gaza and the delivery of 400-500 trucks of food aid to the territory per day.

"Despite this," it said, "the movement's leadership is studying the submitted proposal."

The European Union as well as Israel, the United States, Germany and several other countries have classified Hamas as a terrorist organization.

French President Emmanuel Macron, his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan's King Abdullah have called for an immediate Gaza cease-fire in a joint article for The Washington Post.

"The war in Gaza and the catastrophic humanitarian suffering it is causing must end now," the three leaders wrote in the US broadsheet.

"We underline the urgent need to bring about a permanent cease-fire in Gaza," they continued, saying that "violence, terror and war cannot bring peace to the Middle East."

The leaders argued that a two-state solution, which foresees the peaceful coexistence of Israel and a Palestinian state based on the borders of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, is "the only credible path to guaranteeing peace and security for all and ensuring that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis ever have to relive the horrors that have befallen them since the October 7 attack."

Some 1,200 people were killed during terror attacks on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, and a further 250 more taken hostage.

Retaliatory Israel airstrikes and ground operations have since killed more than 33,200 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, much of which has been left in ruins and on the brink of famine.

Macron, el-Sissi and Abdullah therefore demanded the "immediate and unconditional implementation" of UN Security Council Resolution 2728 which called for an "immediate cease-fire" on March 25.

mf/rt (AFP, Reuters, AP)