Gaza and a ceasefire slip out of focus as Lebanon conflict rages

CAIRO: Palestinians fear the crisis in Lebanon is diverting the world's attention from Gaza, where Israeli strikes killed dozens more people this week, and diminishing already dim prospects for a ceasefire a year into a war that has shattered the enclave.

An escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah over the past two weeks has led to clashes between Israeli and Hezbollah forces inside Lebanon and fueled fears of a wider regional war.

Both Israel and its Hamas foes in Gaza say the Lebanon conflict could help end the Gaza conflict, but some analysts, officials from mediating countries, and Gazans, are sceptical.

"The focus is on Lebanon, which means the war in Gaza isn't ending anytime soon," Hussam Ali, a 45-year-old Gaza City resident who said his family had been displaced seven times since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 last year, told Reuters via a chat app.

When Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel late on Tuesday, provoking an Israeli promise of a "painful" response, some Gazans welcomed the salvo visible in the skies overhead as a sign Tehran was fighting for their cause.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said prospects for a Gaza ceasefire deal, which would see the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians jailed by Israel, were distant before the escalation in Lebanon. A regional conflagration could lead to pressure on Israel to strike a deal in Gaza, he said.

But with attention swinging to Lebanon, the war in Gaza risked being prolonged, said Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram in Egypt, which has helped to mediate months of ceasefire negotiations.

"The most dangerous thing isn't that the media attention is going somewhere else, it is the fact that no one in the world is now talking about a deal or a ceasefire, and that frees Israel's hand to continue its military offensive and plans in Gaza," he said.

STALLED TALKS

Inside Gaza there has been no sign of a let-up in Israel's offensive against Hamas. On Thursday, local medics reported at least 99 Palestinian deaths in the past 24 hours.

Egypt, which has been alarmed by the Israeli offensive on the other side of its border with Gaza and has lost billions of dollars in Suez Canal revenues during the war, is frustrated that its mediation efforts have failed to secure a truce.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the U.S. remained focused on securing a ceasefire though Hamas had for weeks "refused to engage".

Hamas officials and Western diplomats said in August that negotiations had stalled due to new Israeli demands to keep troops in Gaza.

"Whereas Israel has been saying since Oct. 7 that military force and putting pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah will help to bring the hostages home we have seen that the exact opposite is true," said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an expert on Middle East diplomacy at London-based think-tank Chatham House.

Israel's escalated campaign against Hezbollah "is putting the ceasefire in Gaza on the back burner, given that the focus is now on trying to dismantle as much of Hezbollah's military arsenal as possible," she said.

An official briefed on the Gaza ceasefire talks told Reuters nothing would happen until after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, "because nobody can effectively pressure (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, which is the key impediment to a Gaza ceasefire deal".

The official said that during U.N. General Assembly meetings last week Hezbollah wanted a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire with Israel to be linked to a ceasefire deal in Gaza, but Israel rejected this and the plan was dropped. Top Israeli officials publicly dismissed the idea of a quick ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week complicated chances for mediation, two Egyptian security sources said. Egypt's efforts became limited to containing any further escalation, the sources said.

ROCKETS

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel at the start of the Gaza war in support of Hamas, causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents whom Israel says need to return home.

In Lebanon, nearly 1,900 people have been killed and more than 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in nearly a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.

More than a million Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes.

The casualty figures are still a fraction of those in Gaza, where the health ministry says at least 41,788 Palestinians have been killed and 96,794 wounded since Oct. 7 last year.

The Gaza war began after Hamas led a shock incursion into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

"We feel for the people of Lebanon and we don't want them to go through the devastation and starvation we are enduring," said Ghada, a 50-year-old mother of five living in a tent in the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people are sheltering.

"I am afraid the world has become less interested in what happens to us here."

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