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Kerry Claims Progress Toward Gaza Truce, but Hamas Leader Is Defiant
(about 2 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Israel faced new political and economic pressures on Wednesday to negotiate a halt to the 16-day-old Gaza war, with its rising toll of death and destruction, as cease-fire talks ground forward and the Israeli tourism industry was upended as major foreign airlines extended their suspension of flights over fears of Palestinian rocket fire.
TEL AVIV — During a whirlwind round of diplomacy on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry asserted that progress had been made on forging a cease-fire to halt the bitter fighting in Gaza between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants there led by Hamas.
Secretary of State John Kerry, whose efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement collapsed this year, conducted a whirlwind tour of diplomacy, holding intensive talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel after having met in the occupied West Bank with the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. But for the moment, the prospects for a cease-fire seemed remote.
“We will continue to push for this cease-fire,” Mr. Kerry said. “We have in the last 24 hours made some progress in moving towards that goal.”
“We will continue to push for this cease-fire,” Mr. Kerry said in Ramallah, where Mr. Abbas is based. “We have in the last 24 hours made some progress in moving toward that goal.” But several hours later Mr. Kerry shook hands with a grim-faced Mr. Netanyahu at the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces in Tel Aviv.
But even as Mr. Kerry pressed his case with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, a defiant note was struck by one figure whom the secretary of state has conspicuously not talked with: Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas.
Neither of them took questions before or after a two-hour meeting. Mr. Kerry then flew back to Cairo, where he had spent part of Tuesday in discussions with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, whose cease-fire proposal had provided the framework for discussions on how to arrange one.
“Everyone wanted us to accept a cease-fire and then negotiate for our rights,” Mr. Meshal said at a news conference in Qatar, his home in exile, taking aim at the very approach Mr. Kerry has sought to nurture. “We reject this, and we reject it again today.”
While Mr. Kerry has emphasized that his immediate goal is to obtain a cease-fire, he also has said that he hopes to lay the ground for a “sustainable process going forward” following an end to the fighting. That seemed to be a way to assure the Palestinians in Gaza that the United States was prepared to address some of their long-term economic and political grievances and to acknowledge Mr. Netanyahu’s argument that a way needs to be found to demilitarize Gaza.
Mr. Kerry has emphasized that his immediate goal is to obtain a cease-fire, after 16 days of fighting that has killed nearly 700 Palestinians, 32 Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians.
But Mr. Kerry’s decision to relegate such issues to a subsequent phase of the negotiations — after a cease-fire is established — also appeared to be an implicit recognition of the difficulties.
In comments after his meeting with Mr. Abbas in Ramallah and a meeting in Jerusalem with Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, Mr. Kerry also stressed that he hoped to lay the ground for a “sustainable “ way forward after an end to the fighting.
Hamas, the main militant group in Gaza, reiterated its rejection of such an approach on Wednesday night. Khaled Meshal, the group’s political leader, made his opposition clear in a speech broadcast from his home-in-exile in Doha, Qatar.
That seemed to be a way to assure the nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza that the United States was prepared to address some of their long-term economic and political grievances without making their solution a condition for a cease-fire and to similarly acknowledge Mr. Netanyahu’s argument that any lasting political settlement should also reduce the ability of Hamas and its affiliates to attack Israel.
“What is needed now is the implementation of the resistance’s demands, then setting the zero-hour for truce,” Mr. Meshal said. “We will not accept any initiative that doesn’t lift the siege on our people and respect their sacrifices and championships.”
Mr. Kerry’s decision, however, to relegate many of these issues to a subsequent phase of the negotiations — after a cease-fire is established — also appeared to be an implicit recognition of the difficulties in resolving these issues.
Israeli officials have talked increasingly in recent days about what they call the need for a demilitarization of Gaza, particularly the destruction of its tunnel network, perhaps under international auspices, as part of any agreement to halt the hostilities. “We cannot go to a cease-fire without resolving the tunnels,” Yitzhak Aharonvich, the public security minister, said on Army Radio. “We can have a cease-fire while dealing with the tunnels, but we cannot accept a situation where the tunnels are used by the terrorists as an entrance into Israel.”
“What we’re trying to figure out is how we can get to the point where the violence can stop and these bigger key issues can be addressed over the longer term,” said a senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified in keeping with the agency’s protocol for briefing reporters.
The intensified diplomacy came as Israel reported three more Israeli soldiers were killed, all by explosive devices, in Gaza on Wednesday, bringing the total to 32; a foreign laborer was also felled by a rocket that hit farmland near the city of Ashkelon in the afternoon, the third civilian casualty on the Israeli side.
Israel’s position remained difficult. While the Israeli public has strongly supported the military’s attacks in Gaza to quell the thousands of rockets fired into Israeli territory, the government faced new economic pressures on Wednesday to negotiate a halt to the war.
The Gaza-based Health Ministry put the Palestinian death toll at 695 and 4,520 wounded. The deaths included 166 children, 67 women, and 37 older men.
Its tourism industry was upended as the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington extended a suspension of all United States flights to and from Israel, over fears of Palestinian rocket fire. One rocket landed earlier in the week near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main gateway.
Witnesses and health officials said the deaths on Wednesday, which totaled at least 71, came from Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and at least one drone attack on a car in northern Gaza that killed three people.
Mr. Kerry, whose United States Air Force plane was exempt from the F.A.A. directive, flew into Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday.
The Israeli military, in a statement summarizing its version of the day’s fighting, said approximately 98 rockets had been fired at Israel from Gaza, of which 70 hit Israeli territory and 25 were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system. The statement said Israeli forces had targeted more than 100 sites including concealed rocket launchers, tunnels and what it described as “terror activity posts” within the premises of Al-Wafa hospital. The statement also said 150 Palestinians had been detained.
American and Israeli officials were involved in discussions over whether it might be possible for the F.A.A. directive to be rescinded soon, but the outcome of those deliberations seemed difficult to predict.
Despite Israeli government assertions that its airports were safe, even though a rocket from Gaza had exploded near Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport, the country’s main gateway, earlier in the week, the unexpected decree on Tuesday by the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington temporarily banning United States carriers from flying to or from Israel had a profound ripple effect. The F.A.A. extended the decree on Wednesday. Most major European carriers also suspended flights.
While Israel’s national carrier, El Al, added larger planes and more flights to its schedule on Wednesday to accommodate passengers stranded by cancellations, El Al already was bracing for tens of millions of dollars in losses from an enormous drop in tourist traffic this summer.
While Israel’s national carrier, El Al, added larger planes and more flights to its schedule on Wednesday to accommodate passengers stranded by cancellations, El Al already was bracing for tens of millions of dollars in losses from an enormous drop in tourist traffic this summer. Tourism professionals were glum, confronting an unexpected aviation restriction imposed from abroad.
Israeli news reports indicated that only seven foreign carriers continued their flights on Wednesday. Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, estimated the hit to the tourism industry could reach $200 million.
“Who would want to fly into an airport that the top aviation authorities say is dangerous?” Moshe Mizrahi, who works in the tourism industry, was quoted as saying on The Times of Israel website. “When this is over, the airlines and hotels are going to have to do some major work to bring people back here.”
The fighting has exerted no significant impact yet on Israel’s vibrant stock market, and its currency, the shekel, has been stable throughout the latest upsurge in the conflict.
Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and a prominent supporter of Israel who expressed his opposition to the F.A.A. directive by flying to Israel on El Al, said Wednesday that he hoped F.A.A. officials would reverse their decision.
Still, some of Israel’s strongest supporters acknowledged that the suspension of the flights had been, as Hamas claimed, a “great victory” in its struggle with Israel.
“They are well-meaning. It’s a great organization,” he said in a televised interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “They make airlines and airports safe in America, but not as safe as Ben Gurion and El-Al are. And the fact that one rocket falls far away from this airport, a mile away, doesn’t mean you should shut down air traffic into a country and paralyze the country.”
“I probably don’t agree with very many things Hamas says, but that is clearly true,” Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, told CNN. Mr. Bloomberg, who flew to Israel on El Al to express his strong objection to the F.A.A. directive, said he thought the agency’s officials had made a mistake.
Asked about assertions by Hamas that it had achieved a "great victory" in reducing air traffic and isolating Israel because of the F.A.A.'s decision, Mr. Bloomberg said: "I probably don’t agree with very many things Hamas says, but that is clearly true.”
“They are well-meaning,” he told CNN. “It’s a great organization. They make airlines and airports safe in America, but not as safe as Ben Gurion and El-Al are.”
Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, estimated the hit to the tourism industry so far stood at $200 million.
“And the fact that one rocket falls far away from this airport, a mile away,” he said, “doesn’t mean you should shut down air traffic into a country and paralyze the country.”
With thousands of Israelis waiting to leave on vacation or stranded abroad because of canceled flights, the price of El Al tickets soared: A ticket to New York available for $1,450 on Tuesday was $2,220 on Wednesday, according to Issta Lines, a travel company.
Despite the economic dislocation, stopping Hamas’s ability to infiltrate Israel through its network of tunnels — which the Israelis now say is far more developed than they had thought — remained their paramount concern.
Israeli news reports indicated that only seven foreign carriers continued their flights Wednesday.
In a briefing for reporters, Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, gave the impression that the army was in a rush to seal as many of the tunnels as it could before a cease-fire might be reached. “We continue to attack our targets, there are many left, many more tunnels to destroy,” General Almoz said.
The fighting has exerted no significant impact yet on Israel’s vibrant stock market, and its currency, the shekel, has been stable throughout the latest upsurge in the conflict. But the Israelis have begun to feel economic pain in other ways. With Israel’s mobilization of 59,000 reservists for possible duty in Gaza, many businesses are missing employees and many shops in the southern area near Gaza have been closed.
Yitzhak Aharonovich, the public security minister, also told Army Radio that in Israel’s view, it was vital to neutralize the tunnels.
Adding further pressure on the combatants to halt the fighting, the United Nations’ top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said Wednesday that there was a “strong possibility” that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes with indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The council, meeting in Geneva, voted to conduct an inquiry.
“We cannot go to a cease-fire without resolving the tunnels,” Mr. Aharonovich said. “We can have a cease-fire while dealing with the tunnels, but we cannot accept a situation where the tunnels are used by the terrorists as an entrance into Israel.”
Ms. Pillay cited Israeli airstrikes on civilian homes in Gaza and the shelling of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital two days earlier, which killed four people, as examples of actions that suggest “a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated in a manner that could amount to war crimes.”
After his meeting in Ramallah, Mr. Kerry heaped praise on Mr. Abbas, whose influence among Palestinians has been increasingly eclipsed by Hamas as the Gaza conflict has intensified.
She also condemned Hamas and other militant groups for attacks on Israeli civilians. And she said it was unacceptable to place military assets in densely populated areas or to launch attacks from then. “The principles of distinction and precaution are clearly not being observed by such indiscriminate attacks on civilians by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups,” she said.
“Sometimes it is very satisfying to see the immediate impact of the violence, but it doesn’t take you to a solution,” Mr. Kerry said. “President Abbas understands the road to the solution. And that is what we are working for. “
The United Nations said Tuesday that 117,000 displaced people in Gaza were sheltering in 80 of its schools, and that 1.2 million residents in Gaza had “no or very limited access to water or sanitation services.”
After his meeting in Israel, Mr. Kerry flew back to Cairo, which he has been using as his main hub for his current round of diplomacy, and consulted by phone with President Obama.
Wednesday morning, Gaza City was quieter than usual, but Israeli navy gunboats fired at the coastline all day. There were also a lot of shootings and explosions between Jabaliya, a refugee camp in the north of the strip, and Khan Younis, a city in the south. A flood of families headed toward Khan Younis from the nearby villages of Abasan al-Kabera, Abasan al-Asghira and Bani Suheila, and a local hospital was receiving many wounded people from those places.
While Mr. Kerry had spoken by phone to his Qatari counterpart, he has yet to visit Qatar during his current diplomatic push.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the Israeli military spokesman, confirmed that most of the fighting remained in areas on the periphery of the Gaza Strip and in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya, where 13 soldiers and at least 60 Palestinians were killed Sunday and fierce combat has continued since. He said 30 militants had been killed in the last 24 hours, for a total of 210 — Palestinians put the number of fighters much lower — and that 28 underground tunnels with 68 entry points had been “exposed,” and six of the tunnels “demolished.”
The willingness of Qatar, an important Arab ally of the United States, to provide a financial support to Hamas — which both the United States and Israel classify as a terrorist organization — may emerge as an element of any cease-fire agreement.
But Qatar also has a tense relationship with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose cease-fire proposal, Mr. Kerry says, has provided the framework for the current negotiations.
In Doha, Qatar’s capital, Mr. Meshal outlined his own demands. While Mr. Meshal said that Hamas would not “close the door” for a brief truce to evacuate the wounded and deliver humanitarian aid, he stressed a more lasting agreement would not come until some of the group’s demands were met.
“We will not accept any initiative that does not lift the blockade on our people and that does not respect their sacrifices,” he said.
