Hamas said on Friday the Palestinian group rejected the “new conditions” of the Gaza ceasefire plan presented by the United States after two days of talks with Israeli negotiators in Qatar.
Amid growing international pressure for a ceasefire after more than 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, US President Joe Biden said: “We are closer than ever.”
Washington, along with its European allies, has been pressing for an early ceasefire in Gaza since the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Iran on July 31 that was blamed on Israel, raising threats of retaliation and fears of a wider Middle East war.
Egypt, Qatar and US mediators are trying to finalise details of a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, and that he said was proposed by Israel.
But months of talks have so far failed to produce a ceasefire or agreement on the release of hostages.
Mediators said the two days of talks in Doha were “serious and constructive”.
In a joint statement they said the United States had presented a “bridging proposal” aimed at ensuring an early agreement at a new round of talks in Cairo next week.
Hamas immediately expressed its opposition to the “new conditions” put forward by Israel in the latest plan.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas “to accept the May 27 principles,” referring to Biden’s framework.
‘Need for peace’
An informed source told AFP that conditions Hamas objected to included the keeping of Israeli troops inside Gaza on the border with Egypt, Israel’s veto right over Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages, and the ability to deport some prisoners rather than returning them to Gaza.
Qatar’s chief mediator, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, spoke with Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri and briefed him on the progress of the talks, the Doha-based foreign ministry said.
“During the talks, they… reviewed the latest developments in joint mediation efforts to end the war in the Strip, and stressed the need for peace and de-escalation in the region,” the Qatari statement said.
Diplomatic pressure on Israel to call for a ceasefire has increased in recent weeks.
Hamas officials, some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.
“There is a growing risk that the situation could spiral out of control,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said ahead of a visit to Israel on Friday with French Foreign Minister Stephane Séjourné.
The UK Foreign Ministry said the two ministers would stress that there is no time for delay or excuses for all parties to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his counterparts that he expected foreign support in “attacking” Iran if it attacked Israel to avenge Haniyeh’s killing.
Sejourne responded that it would be “inappropriate” to discuss a response to any attack while diplomacy is in full swing to prevent one.
‘Disgusting’ attack
A deadly attack by Israeli migrants in the occupied West Bank late Thursday night drew international condemnation and calls for Israeli government sanctions against those who have fuelled the escalation of migrant violence against Palestinians, particularly since the start of the Gaza war.
The Israeli military said that “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked”, entered the village of Jit, west of Nablus and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, threw stones and hurled Molotov cocktails”. One Palestinian man was shot and killed.
Villager Hasan Arman said the attackers were armed with knives, machine guns and silencers.
“It was horrific,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office.
“It is shocking and worth remembering that yesterday’s killing in Zeit was not an isolated attack but a direct consequence of Israel’s policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank,” he said.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry described the attack as “organised state terrorism”.
The British foreign minister described the attack as “disgusting”. The French minister said it was “unacceptable”.
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said he would propose sanctions against the Israeli government for promoting violence against Jewish immigrants.
“Day after day, with almost total impunity, Israeli settlers are fuelling violence in the occupied West Bank, threatening any possibility of peace,” Borrell wrote on X.
“The Israeli government must immediately halt these unacceptable actions”, he wrote, and vowed to “introduce a proposal for EU sanctions against supporters of violent migrants, including some members of the Israeli government.”
The last comment was clearly a reference to far-right ministers in the Israeli government.
One of them, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was quick to join other Israeli leaders in condemning the attack carried out by “criminals” on Thursday night.
‘We are being killed’
The war began with an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October, resulting in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom the military says are dead. More than 100 were released during a week-long ceasefire in November.
The death toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza rose to more than 40,000 on Thursday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, although the ministry did not give details of civilian and militant casualties.
Bombs continue to fall in the Palestinian territory as Gaza ceasefire talks continue.
“Why did Netanyahu send a delegation to talks while we are being killed here?” asked Mohammed al-Balawi in Jabalia, amid the concrete rubble left after deadly airstrikes in northern Gaza on Thursday.
He said that he had found body parts on the ground.
Air strikes hit central Gaza and the southern town of Khan Younis on Friday, witnesses said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
