• Fighting will resume, prisoner swaps to stop if no agreement reached by Friday
• Palestinians in West Bank fear Gaza-style clearance as Tel Aviv squeezes Jenin camp
JERUSALEM: Israel is considering an extension of the 42-day truce in Gaza as it seeks to bring home the remaining 63 prisoners, while putting off agreement on the future of the enclave for now.
The initial phase of the ceasefire deal, launched with the backing of the United States and the help of Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Jan 19, is due to end on Saturday and it remains unclear what will follow.
“We are being very cautious,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told reporters in Jerusalem, when asked whether the truce might be extended without the start of talks on a second phase which would include difficult issues such as a final end to the war and the future governance of Gaza.
“There wasn’t a particular agreement on that, but it might be a possibility,” she said. “We didn’t close the option of continuing the current ceasefire, but in return for our [prisoners], and they have to be returned safely.”
If no agreement is reached by Friday, officials expect either a return to fighting or a freeze in the current situation in which the truce would continue but prisoners would not return and Israel may block the entry of aid into Gaza.
Two officials who have been involved in the ceasefire process said Israel and Hamas have not engaged in negotiations to finalise an agreement over second phase of the ceasefire.
“I think it’s unrealistic to see something like that forming within a few days,” Haskel said. “This is something that needs to be discussed in depth. This is going to take time.”
The deal, which included the release of 33 Israeli prisoners in return for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from some of their positions in Gaza, has survived numerous hiccups. So far, 29 Israeli prisoners, plus five Thais, have been released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
There is now a standoff over the release of more than 600 Palestinians, which Israel has delayed.
Jenin refugee camp
On the other hand, Israeli bulldozers have demolished large areas of the now virtually empty Jenin refugee camp and appear to be carving wide roadways through its once-crowded warren of alleyways, echoing tactics already employed in Gaza as troops prepare for a long-term stay.
At least 40,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Jenin and the nearby city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank since Israel began its operation just a day after reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza after 15 months of war.
“Jenin is a repeat of what happened in Jabalia,” said Basheer Matahen, spokesperson for the Jenin municipality, referring to the refugee camp in northern Gaza that was cleared out by the Israeli army after weeks of bitter fighting. “The camp has become uninhabitable.”
He said at least 12 bulldozers were at work demolishing houses and infrastructure in the camp, once a crowded township that housed descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out in the 1948 war in what Palestinians call the ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe at the start of the state of Israel.
He said army engineering teams could be seen making preparations for a long-term stay, bringing water tanks and generators to a special area of almost one acre in size.
No comment was immediately available from the Israeli military but on Sunday, Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered troops to prepare for “a prolonged stay”, saying the camps had been cleared “for the coming year” and residents would not be allowed to return.
The month-long operation in the northern West Bank has been one of the biggest seen since the Second Intifada or uprising by Palestinians more than 20 years ago, involving several brigades of Israeli troops backed by drones, helicopters, and, for the first time in decades, heavy battle tanks.
