A Hamas official reiterated on Saturday that the Palestinian movement, which is currently negotiating a truce in the Gaza Strip in Cairo, would “under no circumstances accept an agreement that does not explicitly provide for an end to the war.”
“Our information confirms that (Benjamin) Netanyahu is personally slowing down an agreement through personal calculations,” also affirmed this official, who requested anonymity, regarding the Israeli Prime Minister, whom Hamas had previously accused of multiplying comments aimed “clearly to frustrate any possibility of agreement.”
Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly repeats his determination to carry out a major offensive on Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip which he considers to be the last stronghold of Hamas, and rules out stopping the war that has been underway for seven months before. for having destroyed the Islamist movement.
The mediators – Egypt, Qatar, United States – have been trying for months to extract a truce from Israel and Hamas, supposed to include in particular a pause in the Israeli offensive and the release of Palestinian detainees in exchange for that of hostages kidnapped during the unprecedented bloody attack carried out from the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian movement on October 7 in southern Israel, which sparked the war.
The head of Hamas accused Israel on Saturday of seeking “to recover its captives without having to stop its aggression on Gaza”.
“Israel’s obstinacy is likely to compromise the negotiations and Netanyahu bears full responsibility,” he continued. “We are keen to reach an agreement, but not at any price.”
A ground offensive on Rafah “will not be a walk in the park and the occupier will pay a high price,” he warned.
A senior Israeli official said Hamas was “hindering any possibility of an agreement” on a truce by insisting on an end to the war in its discussions with mediators in Cairo.
He also described as “inaccurate” press reports indicating that Israel had “agreed to end the war, as part of a prisoner exchange agreement”.