Hamas has said a ceasefire deal must result in a permanent end to Israel’s war on Gaza, accusing the United States of “simply buying time for Israel to continue its genocide” by proposing an amended deal.
As the Palestinian group revealed details of Israel’s new terms, it urged the world to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the deal proposed by US President Joe Biden on May 31 and backed by the United Nations Security Council on June 11.
“The Israelis have backed down on the points included in Biden’s proposal. Netanyahu’s statements about his agreement with an updated proposal indicate that the US administration has failed to convince him to accept the previous deal,” Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told Tel Aviv Tribune on Monday.
On Tuesday, Biden said Hamas was “withdrawing” from the deal with Israel.
“It’s still happening, but you can’t predict anything,” he said as he left the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “Israel says it can find a solution… Hamas is now backing down.”
Hamas responded to Biden’s comments, saying they were “misleading,” stressing that it was keen to reach a deal but that the new provisions contradicted the previous framework.
By changing the terms, the United States is showing “blind bias” toward Israel and caving to its demands, Hamas said, thereby allowing it to “commit more crimes against defenseless civilians in pursuit of the goals of extermination and displacement of our people.”
“Transition proposal”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv on Monday that he had “a very constructive meeting” with Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridge proposal.”
“This is a defining moment – probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to bring the (Israeli) hostages home, to get a ceasefire, and to put everyone on a better path toward lasting peace and security,” Blinken said.
The Israeli army announced on Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies of six prisoners in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The United States presented its latest proposal last week after renewed talks in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Hamas said the new proposal met Netanyahu’s conditions, including his refusal of a ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of troops from Gaza, and his insistence on maintaining control of the Netzarim corridor, which separates the north and south of the enclave, the Rafah border crossing and the Philadelphia corridor that borders Egypt.
Blinken traveled to the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El Alamein on Tuesday to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at his summer palace.
El-Sisi warned of the risk of a regional expansion of Israel’s war on Gaza in a way that is “hard to imagine” and stressed that “the time has come to end the ongoing war,” according to a statement released by the Egyptian presidency.
“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as it is the fundamental guarantor of stability in the region,” Mr. el-Sisi said, according to the statement.
Hussein Haridy, Egypt’s former deputy foreign minister, told Tel Aviv Tribune ahead of their meeting that Egypt opposed Israel’s aim of maintaining control of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphia corridor.
“Egypt has always rejected the permanent Israeli military presence in the Philadelphia Corridor as well as Israeli control over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing,” Haridy said. “This remains the Egyptian position.”
On the road to Qatar
Blinken will then travel to Doha for a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month conflict in Gaza.
The Biden plan would freeze the fighting for six weeks initially, while Israeli prisoners are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.
Netanyahu said Monday that negotiators aimed to “release as many hostages as possible alive” in the first phase of any cease-fire.
On Tuesday, at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli military strike on the Mustafa Hafez school in western Gaza City, according to the enclave’s civil defense authorities.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the school-turned-shelter was “serving as a last resort” for displaced Palestinians, and the Civil Defense said it was sheltering 700 people.
At least 40,173 people have been killed and 92,857 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel in attacks by Hamas on October 7, and more than 200 were captured.
