The obstacles still in the way of an Israel-Hamas peace deal

Good morning. One week ago, Joe Biden said that he believed that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be reached by today. But while talks are continuing, there is still no ceasefire in Gaza.

In Cairo yesterday, a Hamas delegation joined talks with Qatari and US mediators, while talks involving Israeli negotiators took place in the Qatari city of Doha on Saturday. How close a deal might be depends on who you listen to. One Hamas official said that if Israel meets its demands, an agreement could be reached within 24-48 hours. But another told Reuters that “We’re not there yet”, and Hamas has indicated that the fallout from the horrific deaths of 115 Palestinian people, after desperate crowds surrounded aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire, could influence its stance.

Meanwhile, a US official said that a deal for a six-week ceasefire was on the table that had been “more or less accepted” by Israel. But Israel says that it will not send a delegation to Cairo until Hamas has told it which hostages are alive – and Hamas claims that producing such a list is impossible until the fighting stops.

But hopes of a deal are not dead – and talks will continue this morning in the hope of finalising an agreement before the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Today’s newsletter takes you through the possible parameters of a deal, what we know about the aid convoy deaths, and why more aid is desperately needed. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘Life is draining out of Gaza’

One week ago, Joe Biden said that “we’re close” to a deal, and that he hoped that ”by next Monday, we’ll have a ceasefire”. A day later, officials from both sides poured cold water on that suggestion: Hamas was pushing “excessive demands”, the Israelis said, while Hamas said the comments did “not match the reality on the ground”.

Then came the terrible incident near Gaza City, and the dispute over responsibility – more on that below. Biden said he expected those events to mean that a ceasefire would “probably not [come] by Monday”, and Hamas said that it would not allow the talks “to be a cover for the enemy to continue its crimes”.

But at the same time, the deaths of so many civilians desperately seeking aid appeared has heightened international pressure for a deal to be done. Yesterday, US vice-president Kamala Harris called for an immediate six-week ceasefire, saying that “People in Gaza are starving” and that the Israeli government must do more to increase the flow of aid. “The conditions are inhumane,” she added. “Our common humanity compels us to act.”

Here’s a briefing on the key events of recent days.

The outline of a deal

On Saturday, a senior US official told reporters that “the path to a ceasefire right now, literally at this hour, is straightforward”. They added: “We’re working around the clock to see if we can get this in place here over the coming week.”

Here are some of the key parameters:

Which hostages would be released of those still alive in Gaza, estimated to be under 100. The senior US official said that Israel appeared to be willing to strike a deal if Hamas would agree to the “default defined category of vulnerable hostages” of the sick and wounded, elderly people, and women.

The production of a list of the hostages, specifying which are alive and which are dead, which has not yet materialised: Hamas says that it is impossible to produce while the fighting continues because the remaining hostages are being held by different groups in different places. It appears that up to half of those still in captivity could be released if a deal is done.

The ratio of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel to be released in exchange. The terms appear likely to involve the release of hundreds of prisoners.

A six-week truce to begin as soon as a deal is announced – with repeated suggestions that any deal should begin by the start of Ramadan, around 10 March, and prevent a threatened Israeli ground attack on the Rafah region where about 1.4 million Palestinians are now sheltering.

More aid allowed into Gaza in the hope of staving off the threat of famine. Hamas has also said it is demanding that Palestinians displaced by the fighting will be allowed to return home.

Hamas has also called for a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to countenance such a step before Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed.

There is no suggestion on the Israeli side that the ceasefire would lead to a final end to the war – and the fate of the remaining hostages is also undefined. But the US and other countries involved in the talks, including Qatar, have said that they hope that “such a prolonged period of calm could then be built into something more enduring”.

What we know about the aid convoy deaths

At 4.45am on Thursday, thousands of people rushed towards a convoy of aid trucks moving down Gaza’s Mediterranean coast near Gaza City. Desperate for food amid an ongoing failure to get adequate supplies into the region, they surrounded the trucks.

What happened next is bitterly contested, with Israel’s account differing sharply from those of Hamas and hospitals where the wounded and dead were taken.

Israel accepts that its soldiers opened fire, but spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said yesterday that according to an initial review, most of the deaths were the result of a stampede towards the convoy. The IDF claims that the majority of those who were injured or died were trampled or run over by trucks, and that its forces fired “warning shots” to “disperse the stampede” and only fired on a small number of “looters” who were an immediate threat.

The authorities in Gaza say that the Israeli forces killed more than 100 people and injured 700 others, and described the incident as a massacre. The director of the nearby Kamal Adwan hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, said that 12 bodies of gunshot victims were brought there along with 100 people who had suffered gunshot wounds. And Dr Mohammed Salha, the acting director of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza, told the Associated Press that 142 of those wounded and brought to the hospital had been shot, against 34 who appeared to have been injured in the stampede.

Aseel Mousa and Emma Graham-Harrison told the story of one of the victims, Bilal el-Essi, and one man who survived, Shukri Fleifel, on Friday. Witness accounts in news reports have featured both descriptions of people being crushed and being shot dead. Whatever the precise balance of those two factors, there is no dispute that the fundamental cause of the chaos was the desperation of thousands of people going hungry, and the shortage of supplies reaching the 300,000 people still trapped in the north of Gaza in particular.

With Hamas chased out of the north of the territory, there is no coordinating force in the area to manage aid supplies; police have meanwhile stopped protecting the convoys after Israeli forces killed a group of officers attending a UN aid convoy in Rafah, and the resulting lack of crowd control appears to have been a central factor.

The aid shortage

Among the most urgent reasons for a ceasefire is to facilitate the delivery of more aid to Gaza’s civilians. Israel has maintained tight limits on supplies getting into Gaza and truck traffic has dropped considerably in recent weeks – with the 98 trucks a day that made it in February 50% down on January, UNRWA says, and even January’s deliveries well below the target of 500 trucks a day.

Last Tuesday, Ramesh Rajasingham, coordinating director of the UN’s humanitarian office, said that one in four people in Gaza are “one step away” from famine. The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, says that he thinks there is already a famine in the north. Yesterday, Gaza’s health ministry said that at least 15 children have died from malnutrition and dehydration at one Gaza city hospital, Kamal Adwan, in the last few days.

That is part of why the US last week organised an airdrop of supplies over southwest Gaza. But the 38,000 meals dropped are a tiny number compared to Gaza’s population of 2.2 million. In this analysis from Saturday, Patrick Wintour pointed out that it would take 500 flights a day to bring in the minimum amount of aid thought to be needed, and that air deliveries are five times as expensive in any case. They are also poorly targeted and tend not to reach those who most urgently need help.

Aid workers say that the only serious means of alleviating the suffering of Palestinians in Gazais for Israel to open up aid crossings and allow supplies to cross the border from Egypt and from Israel itself.

All of that explains why aid workers have been so desperate to see a ceasefire. With the total death toll in Gaza now going past 30,000, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday: “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”

What else we’ve been reading

There were lots of brilliant pieces in Saturday magazine’s therapy special, Analyze This – from therapist Joshua Fletcher’s account of the pitfalls of dealing with an A-list client to Morwenna Ferrier’s memoir piece about what happened when her therapist of two years crossed a line. Archie

Want to learn to charm the pants of a prospective employer? Coco Khan explores the art of persuasion. Unsurprisingly, flattery can play a big part. Toby Moses, head of newsletters

Danny Dorling has an interesting piece for the Observer about global birthrates – and why local anxiety in parts of the west about population decline is missing the point. Archie

Samira Shackle looks back at the strange era of the lads mag, talking to the women who worked for them, and loved it: “The whole experience was just mind-blowingly fun”. Toby

Kara Swisher has been among the pre-eminent chroniclers of Silicon Valley for decades. As her memoir comes out, she gives John Harris a very entertaining interview about her view of the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk: “I feel like a parent whose progeny had turned into, well, assholes.” Archie

Sport

Football | Manchester City fell behind to a Marcus Rashford stunner but eventually prevailed 3-1 against United in the Manchester derby thanks to two goals from Phil Foden (above) and one from Erling Haaland. In the Women’s Super League, Alessia Russo delighted a sold-out crowd at the Emirates by scoring the only goal to give Arsenal a 1-0 win over Tottenham in the north London derby.

Formula One | Christian Horner’s leadership has been cast into fresh doubt after Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, claimed Red Bull is “in danger of being torn apart” if the under-fire team principal remains in his role. A defiant Horner said over the weekend that he is “absolutely confident” he will stay on as Red Bull boss for the remainder of the Formula One season.

Athletics | The pre-race favourite Jemma Reekie won a world indoor championship silver medal in the 800m, finishing second to Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma. Reekie said that she was happy with the result after a year in which she had glandular fever and split with her coach. There was a second British medal on the final night of the event as the women’s 4x400 team earned bronze in a national record time.

The front pages

The Guardian’s headline today is “Budget plan risks forcing UK into second lost decade, Hunt warned,” as many of the papers have a take on Wednesday’s expected announcement. “Hunt looks for £9bn to balance his budget” is the Times headline as the paper talks tax cuts. The Mirror says “The price of Tory tax bribes,” reporting that Hunt is being warned public services are in crisis. In the i it’s “Hunt fuels Tory jitters of election budget light on tax cuts”, as the paper reports on pressure from senior conservatives. The Express has “Can Hunt and PM pull rabbit out of hat?”, another look at possible tax cuts.

In the Financial Times, the headline is “Saudis and Russians lead Opec+ push on oil prices by extending output cuts”, as the paper looks at moves by members to increase the price of oil. The Telegraph’s headline is “Police solve no burglaries in half of country”, its look at analysis of police data. And in the Mail it’s “Cash for care jobs visa scam” as the paper headlines on its own investigation into the care sector.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Nicola Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

In this beautifully written piece, Philip Hoare explores the complicated sex lives of whales after the first scientifically documented male-to-male sexual interactions between two humpback whales off the coast of Hawaii.

We cannot know how whales and dolphins themselves regard genital interactions. But in most cases they appear to enjoy them – without, perhaps, the preconceptions we humans as a species have historically projected upon such behaviour. They may make great clickbait on social media, but they have an important relevance for us, too.

The sea itself seems to be a queer place, where gender is at best a slippery notion at times. So much of what we project on to whales and dolphins is about our own complexes. They seem to lead a free and easy life. Having been around for millions of years, it is tempting to imagine their long-evolved existence as one that is beyond all the things that seem to hold us humans back.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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