GAZA, (PIC)
In Cairo, words are reviewed with precision, and clauses are discussed sentence by sentence, while mediators attempt to extract a formula that keeps the political path alive, even at a minimum level. However, in Gaza, there was another path being managed in parallel, a path created by Israeli aircraft through assassinations and blood.
A strike loaded with messages
On a bloody day that witnessed the martyrdom of nine martyrs, and amidst intensive indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel, Azzam Khalil al-Hayya, the son of the head of the Hamas negotiating delegation, was subjected to an assassination crime via an Israeli drone attack on Wednesday evening (6 May), while he was in the Jabalia parking area in the ad-Daraj neighborhood east of Gaza City, at the very moment his father was busy following the details of the negotiating discussions.
Al-Hayya was holding meetings and contacts in Cairo with mediators and the High Representative for Gaza in the Peace Council, Nickolay Mladenov, when news reached him of the targeting of his son, who was seriously injured before his martyrdom was announced on Thursday morning.
According to what was monitored by the political writer and analyst Wissam Afifa in an article of his, what happened is not viewed as an isolated incident, but rather as an extension of a clear Israeli methodology: imposing a new negotiating rhythm under the impact of assassinations, in an attempt to exhaust the will of the negotiating delegation and break its steadfastness.
What happened in the last negotiation session
The political writer Mohammad al-Aila revealed details of what took place in the negotiating session that immediately preceded the targeting operation, noting that the strike was not surprising to those who know the nature of what transpired on the table.
According to al-Aila; “the enemy’s proposal in the last session constituted a clear coup against what had been signed and the understandings that took place in the Cairo and Istanbul sessions, as it demanded the immediate disarmament of all types of weapons, even personal pistols, without the mediators succeeding in obtaining any commitment or guarantee in return.”
Al-Aila added that the escalation came in a clear context: Israel directed a personal and explicit threat to the head of the delegation, Dr. Khalil al-Hayya, to pay a “heavy price” during that session, following his and the delegation’s refusal to accept Israeli dictates that overturn what was previously understood.
The Doha precedent: When the negotiators themselves were targeted
This scene brings to memory one of the most dangerous moments in the path of negotiations; Al-Hayya lost three of his sons in separate incidents, the latest of whom was Hammam, the twin of Azzam who was targeted Wednesday, who was killed in a strike that targeted his father along with a number of Hamas leaders during their presence in Doha in September 2025, while the Movement was studying a new American proposal regarding a ceasefire.
Afifa believes that strike carried an Israeli message that cannot be misinterpreted: the path of negotiation itself can be targeted by fire, and not just by political pressure. Today, the scene seems to be repeating itself in a harsher form.
Disarmament: The knot that summarizes everything
These events are taking place against the backdrop of a highly complex negotiating path, as the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that negotiations between Hamas and the Peace Council in Gaza reached a dead end with Israel’s intransigence and its refusal to implement what it owes in the first phase before moving to the second phase.
Hamas stressed the necessity of full Israeli implementation of the first phase of the agreement, which includes Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip before discussing the second phase, which includes ideas related to weapons. In contrast, Israel informed Mladenov that it will not withdraw beyond the “Yellow Line”, which is a line that gives it control over approximately 54% of the Strip’s area, and to which it recently added a new 11% area via the so-called Orange Line.
Cairo is witnessing intensive diplomatic activity, as Qatar, Türkiye, and Egypt presented a new proposal based on a compromise formula: the immediate start of implementing the remaining obligations of the first phase, in parallel with launching negotiations for the second phase, provided that the implementation of any future understandings is conditional on the full completion of the first phase.
Mediators in a narrow margin
The problem for the Palestinian factions is no longer related to the absence of formulas or a lack of political flexibility, but rather to the absence of any real steps on the ground. Hamas emphasized the necessity of stopping all Israeli attacks, dismantling military points west of the Yellow Line, allowing entry of 600 aid trucks daily, and the National Committee for the Management of Gaza commencing its work inside the Strip.
Approximately 850 Palestinians have been killed and at least 3,400 have been injured since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October last year, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which are figures that summarize the distance between what is said on negotiation tables and what is happening on the ground in the Strip.
Afifa monitors the dilemma of the mediators accurately: there is an increasing understanding of the Palestinian position, countered by a clear inability to exert actual pressure on Israel, or to extract an American commitment capable of transforming theoretical understandings into field realities.
Negotiations drag on but do not collapse
Despite this bloody pace, it does not seem that the negotiating path has completely collapsed. Hamas has kept part of its delegation in Cairo, headed by al-Hayya, in response to the request of the mediators, in a step that reflects a keenness to continue the dialogue and avoid giving an impression of the failure of negotiations. The factions are still dealing with the efforts of the mediators as the most realistic option to prevent a return to a wide-scale war.
“The negotiations did not fail… but they are dragging on. The mediators did not leave the table… but they are moving within a narrow margin. As for Gaza, it still pays the same price every time: whenever politics approaches a solution, the planes approach their targets more,” this is how the writer Wissam Afifa summarizes the scene.
