Egypt said pressuring Hamas to attend Thursday ceasefire talks
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
After Hamas announced that it does not plan to send negotiators to a summit scheduled for next Thursday in Doha, Cairo is attempting to persuade the terror group to participate in order to disprove Israeli allegations that the terror group is disrupting efforts to reach a ceasefire, according to an Egyptian source quoted by the Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar.
Cairo is also said to be pushing for a temporary halt in fighting lasting a few days, as an opportunity to “catch breath and work to prolong the ceasefire.”
Yesterday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the importance of Hamas attending Thursday’s summit in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan. While the US readout didn’t go as far as stating that Blinken urged Fidan to pressure Hamas to attend the Thursday meeting, that does appear to be the implication, as Ankara has a warm relationship with the terror group’s leadership.
