The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas announces on Saturday that it is “studying” an Israeli counter-proposal with a view to an armistice in the War in the Gaza Strip and a release of hostages, a new development in negotiations at a deadlock that Egypt wants to relaunch, reports AFP.
“Today (Saturday) Hamas received the official response of the Zionist occupation to our proposal that was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13. The movement will study this proposal and give an answer after it finishes its study”, Khalil al-Hayya, the number two of the political wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, announced in a press release.
Hamas announced in a press release, on April 13, that it had sent a response to mediators in Egypt and Qatar regarding a proposal for a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip War, in which it insisted on a permanent truce.
Hamas did not explicitly reject the truce plan, but reaffirmed its “demands” – a “permanent truce”, the withdrawal of the Israeli army “from the entire Gaza Strip”, “the return of the displaced to their areas and places of residence” and “the intensification of the entry of humanitarian aid” into the war-ravaged enclave.
Israel opposes a permanent truce and insists on a “pause” of several weeks in the armed confrontations, to then carry out a ground operation in Rafah, and refuses to withdraw from the entire enclave.
This counterproposal – the details of which have not been disclosed – comes as an Egyptian delegation arrived in Israel on Friday in an attempt to relaunch negotiations on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of the hostages.
This week, the Israeli press evokes the possibility of the release in a first phase of 20 hostages, considered “humanitarian cases”.
A delegation from Egypt, one of three mediating countries, along with Qatar and the United States, is in Israel to discuss a “global framework for a ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, according to an Egyptian publication close to Egyptian intelligence, Al-Qahera News, citing a senior Egyptian official.
The Israeli press writes that the Egyptian delegation is going to try to relaunch the negotiations – which have been deadlocked for several weeks – and to plead in favor of an agreement that would involve the release of “dozens” of hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
The war in the Strip is set to be at the center of meetings between senior Arab and European diplomats – including the foreign ministers of Germany and France – this weekend in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
NEW ATTACKS NEAR RAFAH
On the ground, on the night of Friday to Saturday, Palestinians announced Israeli attacks near Rafah, where Israel is preparing to launch a ground offensive despite fears of the international community.
Numerous capitals and humanitarian organizations fear a bloodbath in this city where 1.5 million Palestinians are huddled, many in tent camps, without water or electricity.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack in the south of Israel by Hamas commandos, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to a tally compiled by AFP based on official Israeli data.
More than 250 people were kidnapped then, and 129 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, of whom 34 have died, according to Israeli officials.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union (EU).
The Israeli army has launched an offensive that has so far resulted in 34,356 deaths, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
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Tags: Hamas announces studying Israeli counterproposal truce Gaza War
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