Blog

Gershon Baskin feels that in the period leading up to Jabari’s execution Egypt had been working to secure a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas and Jabari was apparently eager to agree to it but Jabari’s assassination killed the possibility of achieving a truce.

Gershon Baskin, who helped to broker the deal under which Hamas released the abducted Israeli sergeant Gilad Shalit, said that a draft deal to end the previous week’s flare-up of violence was already circulating among the parties when Israel launched its strike on Ahmed Jaabai.

Mr. Baskin reveals that it was the chief Hamas negotiator on preventing rocket attacks, Ahmed al-Jabari, who the Israelis assassinated in a Barzini gambit.

Gershon Baskin shares his first-hand insights about his mediated contact with Ahmed Jabari, commander of Hamas’s military wing, who was presented with the draft of a long-term cease-fire proposal (another effort of Baskin’s), when Israel assassinated Jabari on Nov. 14, 2011.

There does not seem to be any dispute that Jaabari and Israeli officials were in dialogue, via Baskin, shortly before Jaabari was killed

The day after the assassination of Ja’abari, Gershon Baskin, who had been involved in mediating Shalit’s release, disclosed that he had been in contact with Ja’abari up to the last moment. Ja’abari had been interested in a long-term cease-fire. The Israeli authorities had been informed.

Gershon Baskin points out that the timing of of placing Israeli armour close to Gaza’s border for an expected invasion is peculiar and alleges that Jabari was preparing to sign a formal ceasefire plan when he was killed.