JERUSALEM — An announcement by Hamas on Monday night that it had accepted a ceasefire proposal sparked temporary jubilation among people on the streets of Rafah, as Palestinian evacuees in the crowded city felt the first ray of hope that the war would end. could finish.
For the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, the announcement raised the possibility that their long wait was coming to an end and that they would soon be able to see their loved ones.
But the fervor was short-lived.
A few hours after Hamas’ announcement, Israel rejected the proposal (which was different from what one of the two sides had been discussing for days) and said it would send a team of negotiators for a new round of talks.
By Tuesday morning, Israeli tanks had entered Rafah, cementing dashed hopes between Israelis and Palestinians for an imminent ceasefire.
In Rafah, disillusioned Palestinians spent Tuesday packing their belongings and preparing to evacuate.
The families of the Israeli hostages were also outraged and thousands of protesters demonstrated late into the night across the country.
Across Gaza, Palestinians have been demanding a ceasefire for months, hoping that a cessation of fighting will end the suffering.
More than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli fire and airstrikes since the war broke out on October 1. 7., according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. That day, Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages.
An estimated 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others are still being held by Hamas, which insists it will not release them unless Israel ends the war and withdraws from Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza have been displaced, many of them sheltering in nylon tents in southern Gaza, while “a full-blown famine” unfolds in the north of the enclave, according to the United Nations.
So when it became known that Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, Palestinians took to the streets, carrying children on their shoulders and banging pots and pans with enthusiasm. For a moment it seemed like life would become easier.
But in the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli tanks entered the Rafah border and took control of one of the key border crossings between Israel and Gaza. Palestinians in the city loaded their belongings into large trucks and fled.
“They kept giving us hope and telling us that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, the truth will happen,” Najwa al-Siksik said as drones flew over her camp. “As you can hear,” he said, “this was going on all night.”
Al-Sisik said he had lost all hope of an eventual agreement.
“(Israel) doesn’t care about us or our children,” he said. “He only cares about his people and (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu only cares about being on top.”
Raef Abou Labde, who fled to Rafah from the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis early in the war, was riding on top of a car packed with belongings and headed for what was likely to be another temporary shelter. Labde said he had little faith that Netanyahu’s far-right government sincerely wanted a ceasefire agreement.
“I hope to God the truth happens,” he said. “But what I see is that Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire. He wants to displace the Palestinian people to the Sinai, destroy Gaza and occupy it.”
In Israel, Hamas’s announcement did not spark the kind of immediate celebrations seen in Gaza. Many relatives of hostages held in Gaza, who have seen what appear to be countless rounds of ceasefire negotiations end without a deal, have become breathless.
“We won’t believe there’s a deal until we start seeing some hostages come home,” said Michael Levy, whose 33-year-old brother, Or Levy, remains in captivity.
Still, the back-and-forth between Israel and Hamas sparked boisterous and sustained protests Monday night. The protesters, led by hostage families, blocked the main road to Tel Aviv and lit fires on the road.
Demonstrations also broke out in Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheba.
The hostages’ families criticized the government’s inaction on a possible deal at a hearing in Israel’s parliament on Tuesday.
“We see all kinds of explanations: This is not the deal we gave them, Hamas changed it,” said Rotem Cooper, whose father, Amiram Cooper, was kidnapped on October 1. 7. He questioned whether military pressure was an effective negotiation tactic to force Hamas to release more hostages.
For some, the news indicated that a deal was closer than ever.
Sharone Lifshitz, whose father, Oded, is a hostage, said she believed the differences between the proposal Hamas had accepted and Israel’s “core demands” were not that wide.
“Hamas are broken operators,” he said. “Now it’s going to be difficult for Israel to just say ‘no.'”
Others said they hoped Israel’s move toward Rafah on Tuesday was a tactic to pressure Hamas into reaching a mutually acceptable deal.
“This is a way to show that Israel takes its demands seriously,” Levy said. “Hamas cannot simply declare that it has accepted an agreement with modified terms.”
———-
AP reporter Melanie Lidman contributed to this report from Jerusalem.