A Hamas leader said the group will not release any of the hostages the group holds until Israel agrees to its demands.
The U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian governments have acted as mediators for a potential ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas, but both sides have been unable to come to an agreement since the expiration of the first deal back in late November.
Khaled Mashal, a Hamas official, said in Jordan on Wednesday that “in the negotiations, we insist on stopping the aggression, withdrawing from Gaza, returning the displaced to their places, especially in northern Gaza, providing all necessary relief, shelter, and reconstruction, and ending the siege,” and he vowed not to “release their prisoners [the hostages] until we achieve these goals.”
Earlier this week, Hamas negotiators said they were sticking to their demands for a comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of the displaced, and an exchange of prisoners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas’s response to the negotiated deal “clearly demonstrates its utter disinterest in a negotiated deal,” and called them “delusion.”
“Hamas has once again rejected an American compromise proposal and has repeated its extreme demands: An immediate halt to the war, the complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip and leaving in place its administration so that it can repeat, time and again, the massacre of October 7, as it has promised to do,” his office’s statement continued.
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have vowed to remove Hamas from power in Gaza and to demilitarize the group, but agreeing to a lasting ceasefire currently would leave those efforts incomplete. After nearly six months since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that prompted the war, the Israel Defense Forces said it has “dismantled” 20 of Hamas’s original 24 battalions, according to the Washington Post.
Israel’s leaders intend for the military to carry out full-scale operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where those battalions are and where there are more than 1 million Palestinians who have fled the war in the north. Their intent has raised significant international consternation, including from the U.S., who believe such operations could result in significant numbers of civilian casualties.
Biden administration officials have said they support Israel’s desire to go after those battalions, but don’t support full-scale operations there. U.S. officials were set to discuss their concerns with two senior advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, but he canceled their trip after the U.S. did not veto a U.N. Security Council resolution about the war.
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“We wanted to have that meeting with Israel to present to them an alternative way to accomplish their legitimate security goals of defeating the Hamas battalions in Rafah, because we believe it is in their interest to do this in a better way,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Wednesday. “We believe that a full-scale military operation in Rafah will not just cause civilian harm to the Palestinian people; it will not just hinder the flow of humanitarian assistance — most of which is coming in through the Rafah area and being distributed initially through Rafah; we believe that that kind of operation would hurt Israel’s national security.”
Back in January, Mashal rejected a two-state solution and called for the destruction of the State of Israel.