CNN
—
The CIA says Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip Yahya SinwarCIA Director Bill Burns told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a closed-door meeting on Saturday that he was coming under increasing pressure from his country’s military commanders to accept a cease-fire and end the war with Israel, according to sources who attended.
Sinwar said, October 7th Massacre The source said Barnes, who is in Israel, told the meeting that he was “not worried about his own death” but that he faced pressure to be held responsible for the immense suffering in Gaza.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Sinwar is hiding out in tunnels beneath his hometown of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip and is a key figure in determining whether Hamas accepts the agreement.
Burns, who has been the Biden administration’s liaison in intense negotiations for months, said it was up to both the Israeli government and Hamas to seize the opportunity to agree to a cease-fire, more than nine months after the war began.
But the internal pressures Shinwar now faces are new in the past two weeks, including requests from his own battle-weary senior commanders, Burns said, citing people attending the private meeting on condition of anonymity.
The CIA director was speaking at the Allen & Company summer vacation, held annually in Sun Valley, Idaho. “Summer Camp for Billionaires” That’s because of the star-studded guest list of tech moguls, media titans and government officials invited to the secretive week-long event.
The CIA declined to comment.
The increased pressure on Sinwar comes in the wake of the Agreed Framework between Hamas and Israel agreed to by President Joe Biden. Laid out In late May, U.S. officials said this was being used as the basis for an agreement to end the fighting.
Burns visited the Middle East last week to further negotiations on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage agreement, meeting with Qatari and Egyptian intermediaries as well as the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service.
“We have fragile possibilities ahead of us,” Burns said Saturday, saying a ceasefire agreement was more likely than ever months after a temporary ceasefire in November freed dozens of hostages, but he stressed the final stages of negotiations would always be difficult.
The new initiative comes after previous talks collapsed in May after Mr Burns held a number of similar meetings and tours in the area.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also under intense pressure at home to reach a deal to bring home the remaining hostages being held in Gaza, with thousands of Israeli protesters regularly taking to the streets of Tel Aviv to demand that his government focus on the return of the hostages rather than a military operation.
“While there are still gaps to be closed, we are making progress and the trends are positive,” Biden said Thursday. “I am determined to get this deal done and to end this war, which must end now.”
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military operations in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while aid groups say thousands are believed to be missing under the rubble and hundreds of thousands more face disease, hunger and lack of housing.
The draft agreement is filled with countless details, but negotiations are routinely delayed by difficult messaging with Shinwal as Israel tries to corner him.
Of Hamas’ three most senior figures in the Gaza Strip, only Deputy Military Commander Marwan Issa is believed to have been found and killed by Israel. Israel targeted the group’s military commander, Mohammed Deif, in a bombing on Saturday that killed about 100 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more, according to a Palestinian health official.
Neither Israel nor the United States has said whether Deif was the target of the attack.
US officials believe Sinwar no longer intends to govern Gaza, and that both Israel and Hamas will sign off on a “transitional governance” plan that would begin as the second phase of a ceasefire in which neither side would govern Gaza, a US official told CNN.
Qatar, too, expel U.S. officials have said that if the militant group Hamas does not agree to the plan, its political leadership will be expelled from its longtime overseas bases.
Recently witnessed and reported Hamas communications: Associated PressHamas officials in the Gaza Strip have called on the group’s outside counterparts to accept Biden’s ceasefire proposal, citing the extensive damage and dire situation in the Strip.
Perhaps in a sign of its eagerness to end the fighting, Hamas recently dropped a key demand that any cease-fire agreement include guarantees that it would lead to a permanent cease-fire, a long-standing sticking point in the negotiations that Israel has rejected.
Netanyahu then insisted that any agreement must allow Israel to resume fighting until its war aims are achieved.
This means a pause in the fighting could begin and some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners could be released before Israel resumes military operations.
Under Biden’s proposed framework, a permanent ceasefire would be negotiated as a first phase of a cessation of fighting, and would remain in place as long as negotiations continue.
Burns spoke on the same day that Prime Minister Netanyahu said at a press conference that he would not move “one millimeter” from Biden’s framework, but claimed that Hamas had asked for 29 changes to the proposal that he had rejected.
“There are still difficult issues to be resolved,” a source familiar with the negotiations told CNN after Burns’ meeting in Doha. A second source agreed, saying it “is still a long way to go.”
