After meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Ismail Haniyeh, the reclusive Hamas leader, said his movement had embraced efforts to find an end to the war and accused Israel of stalling while Gazans die under siege.
He added: “We will not allow the enemy to use negotiations as a cover for this crime.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is ready to reach an agreement, and that it is up to Hamas to abandon the demands, which he described as “from another planet.”
“Obviously we want this deal if we can get it. It depends on Hamas. “It's really their decision now,” he told Fox News. “They have to come down to reality.”
Al Thani's office said Al Thani and the Hamas leader discussed Qatar's efforts to broker an “immediate and permanent ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.”
download
A source told Reuters earlier that an Israeli working delegation flew to Qatar to establish an operations center to support the negotiations. The source said that its mission will include examining the proposed Palestinian activists whom Hamas wants to release in a hostage release deal.
Israel continues to publicly assert that it will not end the war until Hamas is eliminated, while Hamas says it will not release the hostages without reaching an agreement to end the war.
Israel is under pressure from its main ally, the United States, to agree to a truce soon, to avoid the threat of an attack on Rafah, the city in the southern Gaza Strip, where more than half of the Strip’s 2.3 million people live, which Washington fears will turn into a bloodbath. .
“We'll go in”
Netanyahu insisted that the attack on Rafah was still planned, and that Israel had a plan to evacuate civilians from harm. In response to a question about whether Israel would attack even if Washington asked it not to do so, Netanyahu said: “Okay, we will enter. It is clear that we make our own decisions, but we will enter based on the idea of evacuating the population as well.” “civilians.”
download
The momentum behind the talks appears to have increased since Friday, when Israeli officials discussed the terms of a hostage release deal in Paris with delegations from the United States, Egypt and Qatar, but not with Hamas.
Since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage on October 7, Israel has launched a massive ground offensive in Gaza, with nearly 30,000 people confirmed dead, according to Gaza health authorities.
In a development that may have an impact on long-term negotiations, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited civilian control over parts of the West Bank, resigned on Monday.
Muhammad Shtayyeh said that he submitted his resignation to allow the formation of a broad consensus among the Palestinians on the political arrangements after the Gaza War.
The Palestinian Authority, recognized by the West as the official representative of the Palestinians, lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007. Washington has called for reforms in the Palestinian Authority as part of a comprehensive solution to govern the Palestinian territories, including Gaza, after the war.
Reuters
Get a direct note from our foreigners Reporters About what's making headlines around the world. Subscribe to the weekly What in the World newsletter here.
