A Hamas official repeated to AFP 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.”
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“Our information confirms that [Benjamin] “Netanyahu is personally slowing down an agreement by personal calculations”, also affirmed this official, who requested anonymity, regarding the Israeli Prime Minister whom Hamas had previously accused of increasing the number of comments aimed “clearly at derailing any possibility of an agreement” .
Mr. Netanyahu repeatedly repeats that he is determined to carry out a major offensive on Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip which he considers to be the last bastion of Hamas, and rules out stopping the war that has been going on for seven months. before having wiped out the Islamist movement.
The mediators – Egypt, Qatar, the 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, an attack that sparked the war.
The Hamas official on Saturday accused Israel 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 cost.”
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 told AFP earlier that 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 an agreement on a prisoner exchange”.
Since October 7, Israel and Hamas have concluded only one truce, at the end of November. It lasted a week and allowed the release of 105 hostages, including 80 Israelis and dual nationals, exchanged for 240 Palestinians held by Israel.
