A senior Hamas leader said on Thursday that Egypt had put forward a new ceasefire proposal to the terror group but that it did not include anything new, and said the organization would not back down from any of its previous demands, days after an Israeli negotiating team returned from Cairo, having drawn up the updated proposal.
The unnamed official told Reuters that American and Egyptian mediators wanted to keep the ceasefire process alive despite their realization that there was a wide gap between the two warring parties. He said that nevertheless, a new round of talks may be held in Cairo next week, ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
“The Hamas leadership informed the Egyptian and Qatari mediators that what is being offered cannot be accepted, as it is a continuation of the stubborn Israeli position,” he added.
Earlier, Hamas politburo official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference from Beirut that there had been no progress in Gaza ceasefire talks despite the Palestinian group showing flexibility, according to him.
Hamdan blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the standstill, claiming he was placing obstacles that hindered both parties from reaching an agreement, and asserting he was “not interested” in releasing Israeli hostages.
As in previous attempts to reach a deal for a temporary truce and the release of hostages, Hamas is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a permanent ceasefire, the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and a substantial increase in the quantity of humanitarian aid that is allowed to enter the Strip.
In addition, Hamas has demanded the release of an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of the 130 hostages it has held in captivity since October 7.
Despite presenting the same demands it has previously, at least publicly, Hamdan claimed that the terror group is being flexible and that Israel is to blame for the lack of progress.
“The occupation government is still evading, and negotiations are stuck in a vicious circle,” he was quoted as saying.
Although Israel has not received an official update from Egyptian mediators regarding Hamas’s response, an unnamed Israeli source told Ynet after Hamdan’s comments that it would appear that the terror group’s leader on the ground Yahya Sinwar is “dragging his feet to avoid a hostage deal.”
“If the reports coming out of Hamas are correct — it would mean that Sinwar does not want a deal and is insisting on a full withdrawal, the return of all residents to the north and a complete ceasefire, and that will not happen,” the source said.
According to sources familiar with the talks, one of the main sticking points is the demand that displaced Palestinians be free to return to their homes in northern Gaza, which Israel ordered evacuated early in the nearly six-month-old war.
“Hamas wants the public to be able to return to the north. This is huge for Hamas and the Israelis are giving them a hard time on that. The Israelis don’t want [displaced Palestinians] to have freedom of movement,” said the source on Wednesday, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Israel fears many of those returning could be Hamas operatives who would try to reassert themselves in the north.
Another sticking point, the source said, is whether Palestinian prisoners with life sentences would be part of the release. Hamas wants to free hundreds of high-value detainees serving time for serious terror offenses, including mass killings.
On Wednesday, Doha-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that the terror group was not prepared to budge on any of the conditions it had previously laid out, saying in a televised speech ahead of Friday’s Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day that it was “committed” to its demands.
Similarly to Hamdan, Haniyeh accused Israel of continuing to “procrastinate stubbornly” on matters related to the hostage deal talks.
Efforts to bring about a temporary cessation of fighting in Gaza and the release of the hostages have been unsuccessful, following a weeklong truce in late November, in which 105 hostages were released. Of the 130 hostages who are still in captivity from October 7, the IDF has said that 34 are no longer alive.
Hamas has also been holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas from Gaza and end the terror group’s 17-year rule after the deadly October 7 terror assault, in which some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered and 253 were seized as hostages by the terror group during an invasion into southern Israel.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that around 33,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since the start of the war, but does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Israel has said it killed some 13,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting, in addition to some 1,000 killed in Israel in the aftermath of the terror group’s October 7 massacre.