3/6/2024–|Last updated: 6/3/202409:30 PM (Mecca time)
Hossam Badran, a member of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said that the movement has not received any new paper for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and the proposal presented by the mediators on May 6, and agreed upon by Hamas and the resistance factions, is the approved position.
Badran added, “US President Joe Biden’s speech regarding negotiations to end the war on Gaza indicates that the occupation and its main supporters are in a state of confusion, because they bet on the defeat of our people and the defeat of their resistance, and this did not happen.”
He pointed out that Biden’s statement acknowledged, in one way or another, that the occupation is unable to achieve any of its political and military goals, which it announced over the past months, pointing out that the United States has the tools and ability to put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to stop the war, because they are the ones who are abstaining. of reaching any agreement.
Badran stressed that Netanyahu is the only party that has obstructed reaching any agreement, and wants the war to continue for personal and partisan reasons, and is ignoring the regional and international position, which is almost unanimous in stopping it.
He said that Netanyahu’s statements contained something of an answer to Biden’s speech that he did not want to move towards any practical agreement, stressing that “the basic guarantee for implementing any agreement is our strength in the field as a people and resistance.”
He stressed that the resistance will not allow the occupation to have any role in arranging our internal affairs, whether the situation inside Gaza or dealing with the crossings in general, especially the Rafah crossing, indicating that the occupation must withdraw from the Rafah crossing and this is a matter of Palestinian consensus, and the previous administration of the crossing must return. As for arranging the Palestinian situation, this is an internal matter that we Palestinians manage without agreeing to any regional or international pressure.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States – in their capacity as mediators in the ongoing discussions to ensure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages and detainees – called on both Hamas and Israel to conclude an agreement that embodies the principles outlined by Biden in the speech of May 31, 2024, according to a joint statement on Saturday.
Those principles that Biden spoke about include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas in the Gaza Strip, and the release of detainees, including women, the elderly, and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of aid into the Strip, according to what a Qatari Foreign Ministry statement said on Saturday.
With the mediation of Egypt and Qatar and the participation of the United States, Israel and Hamas have been conducting faltering indirect negotiations for months, while the Israeli war on Gaza has continued since October 7, 2023.
The Israeli war on Gaza left more than 118,000 dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
