Gaza ceasefire talks resumed on Thursday, August 15, in the Qatari capital of Doha with the notable absence of one of the negotiating parties, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Over the past several months, the talks have involved three main mediators including the United States, Egypt, and Qatar in addition to warring parties Israel and Hamas, and have passed through different stages of obstructions and stalemate recriminations.
Hamas had already announced on Sunday, August 11 that it rejected an invitation to attend the new round of negotiations because it wants a return to the Biden-backed ceasefire proposal and the amendments it submitted to that plan on July 2. “Going to new negotiations allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Wednesday, August 14.
While all regional and international efforts have been focused on reaching a ceasefire and prisoner swap agreement, Israel has been jeopardizing the lives of its own captives continuing to bombard the Gaza strip and massacre Palestinians.
On Monday, August 12, Hamas announced that one of the Israeli captives was killed by his guard, while two other women captives were seriously injured in two separate incidents in Gaza, and that investigations were underway to unveil the circumstances of both incidents.
On Thursday, August 15, Hamas published a photo of the slain captive, stating that the guard killed him “out of revenge” after he received news that his two children were massacred in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza strip. Hamas clarified that the guard’s act was inconsistent with its instructions, and doesn’t represent the ethics of the movement.
Moreover, Hamas blamed the Israeli brutal military campaign against the Palestinian people for triggering such reactions, describing the incident as “unfortunate”. Nevertheless, the movement’s statement did not provide additional details on the other incident, in which two women captives were injured.
The Israeli military campaign against Palestinians is not only restricted to its daily massacres on the Gaza strip that have killed more than 40,000 people, according to the latest statement of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza on Thursday. Atrocities committed by the IOF against Palestinian prisoners have been unfolding in the last few months as well.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners Club recently published a testimony on behalf of a 21-year-old Palestinian prisoner, who was used as a human shield by IOF for more than 40 days.
The prisoner recounted how he was compelled to wear a military uniform, and was equipped with a camera. He also mentioned being tied to military vehicles, guided by drones, and being beaten in case of not complying with orders given to him. Furthermore, the prisoner was about to lose his life, when he was shot in the chest without being provided with the needed treatment for more than half an hour on August 6.
This testimony is yet another episode in a long list of incidents of mistreatment and humiliation that Palestinian prisoners have been subjected to for decades, and which have become more visible during the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza.
At the beginning of August, media outlets were abuzz with a leaked video that shows Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian prisoners in Sde Teiman desert detention center. Although the Israeli authorities initially arrested the suspected soldiers and initiated an investigation on the incident, Israeli media reported on Thursday, August 13, that the soldiers in question were released and placed on house arrest by an Israeli military court.
As all eyes are on the ceasefire talks to succeed and end the ordeal of the people in the region, doubts have been growing that Israel will fulfill its commitments in the event of signing an agreement due to its heinous track record of crimes against humanity.