Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reports that there has been no response from mediators Qatar and Egypt following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls for talks to end the fighting.
“The Israeli prime minister has released a video statement saying that he has now approved the Israeli army’s plans to conquer and occupy Gaza City,” Salhut says. “But in the same breath, he said that he also ordered what he’s calling the immediate negotiations for a ceasefire deal to release the Israeli captives and for an end to the war, but only if the conditions please Israel.
“There’s still no word at this time of any sort of negotiating team heading to either the Qatari capital, Doha, or the Egyptian capital, Cairo,” she adds.
Salhut notes that last night, Netanyahu released another statement saying that he wanted a shorter timeline for taking over the northern part of Gaza.
“The Israeli military doesn’t exactly have a timeline of when they’re going to go in, but they have said previously is that they are operating what they say is great strength and force in and around Gaza City, and that it’s only a matter of time before they go in, forcibly displacing more than a million people in the process,” she reports.
