Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the Palestinian extremist organization is losing faith in the United States' ability to negotiate a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, ahead of a new round of talks planned for Sunday, as pressure mounts to end the 10-month war with Israel.
Hamdan said in an hour-long interview with The Associated Press that Hamas would participate only if talks focused on implementing a proposal presented by US President Joseph Biden in May and supported by the international community.
Biden said it was Israel's proposal and Hamas agreed to it in principle, but Israel responded that Biden's speech was not entirely in line with that proposal.
Hamas opposes Israel's demand for a permanent military presence in two strategic areas of Gaza after any ceasefire. That request was made public in recent weeks.
Hamdan, a member of Hamas' political bureau, which includes top political leaders and sets policy, said the mediators (Qatar, Egypt and the US) have been informed that any meeting should be based on implementing mechanisms and setting deadlines, not negotiating anything new. .
He added that otherwise Hamas sees no reason to participate in them.
It remained unclear until tonight whether Hamas would attend the talks that begin tomorrow in the Qatari capital Doha, as new efforts are underway to end the war sparked by the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
About 1.200 people were killed, and more than 250 people were kidnapped. Israel responded with a devastating bombing and ground invasion. Almost 40.000 Palestinians were killed and large parts of the Palestinian territory were destroyed.
More war is now feared, with Hamdan accusing Israel of not acting in good faith and saying Hamas does not believe the US can or will pressure Israel into a deal.
A Hamas official claims that Israel is sending a non-voting delegation or changing delegations from one round of talks to the next, in order to start over, and has set new conditions.
Israeli officials did not immediately respond to the claims, but Israel has previously denied sabotaging the talks and accused Hamas of doing so.
During the interview in Doha, Hamdan showed copies of the draft agreement and written responses from Hamas.
This shows that the organization tried to add Russia, Turkey and the UN as guarantors, but that Israel always included only existing mediators.
Hamdan also said that several times Hamas accepted all or most of the proposal, but Israel immediately rejected or ignored it, and launched new military operations.
He added that at the time of the new operation in Rafah, CIA director William Burns told Hamas through an intermediary that Israel would agree to the agreement, but that the Americans were not able to convince the Israelis and he thinks they did not even apply pressure.
He also accused Israel of stepping up attacks on Hamas leaders when the organization agreed in principle to the mediator's latest proposal.
The biggest stumbling block in the talks is how and when the temporary ceasefire will become permanent.
(Beta)
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks scheduled for Thursday in Qatar, dashing hopes of an agreed ceasefire that Iranian sources said could prevent an Iranian attack on Israel, the Guardian reports.
The United States said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday, and that a ceasefire agreement is still possible, Reuters reported. However, Axios reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken postponed a trip to the Middle East, which was due to start on Tuesday.
Three senior Iranian officials said only a Gaza ceasefire deal would prevent Iran from retaliating directly against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil last month.
The Israeli government said it would send a delegation to the talks on Thursday, but Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, has demanded a workable plan to implement the proposal it has already accepted, rather than new talks.
"Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, based on the UN Security Council resolution and Biden's speech, and the movement is ready to immediately begin discussions on the mechanism for its implementation," senior Hamas official Sami Abu said. Zuhri for Reuters.
"Going to new negotiations allows the occupier to impose new conditions and use the labyrinth of negotiations to carry out the massacre even more," he added.
US envoy Amos Hoxtin said he believes war between Israel and the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah can be avoided, the Guardian reports.
When asked at a press conference after a meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is a strong ally of Hezbollah, whether Israel and Hezbollah can avoid war, Hoxtin replied: "I hope, I believe they can."
Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39.965 Palestinians and wounded 92.294 since October 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
A total of 36 Palestinians were killed and 54 were wounded in the last 24 hours, according to the ministry's statement.
Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday morning killed at least 17 people, including five children and their parents, Palestinian health officials said.
The latest attacks came on the eve of new talks aimed at reaching a truce between Israel and Hamas in the 10-month war, the Guardian reports.
One of the attacks hit a family home late Tuesday in central Gaza's built-up Nuseirat refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war.
The attack killed five children, aged two to 11, and their parents, according to a report from the nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
An Associated Press reporter, who saw the bodies that arrived, said they were dismembered by the explosion and that a two-year-old child was beheaded.
A three-month-old baby, Rim Abu Haya, was the only member of her family to survive an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip late Monday.
A few kilometers north, Mohamed Abuel Komasan lost his wife and their four-day-old twins in another attack.
More than 10 months after the start of the war with Hamas, Israel's relentless bombing of the isolated territory has wiped out entire families, AP reports.
An Israeli strike on Monday destroyed a house near the southern city of Khan Yunis, killing 10 people.
Among the dead were the parents of Rim Abu Haja and her five brothers and sisters, ages five to 12, as well as the parents of three other children.
All four children were wounded in the attack.
"There is no one left but this baby. We have been trying to feed her with formula since this morning, but she does not accept it, because she is used to mother's milk," said her aunt, Soad Abu Haja.
The attack that killed Abuel Komasana's wife and their newborns – a boy named Aser and a girl named Ajsel – also killed the twins' maternal grandmother.
The US military announced that it destroyed two vessels of the Houthi rebel group in the Red Sea, the Guardian reports.
Newborn twins were killed in Gaza while their father was at the local government office to register their birth. The boy Aser and the girl Ajsel were only four days old when their father Mohamed Abu al-Kumsan went to collect their birth certificates, according to the BBC.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Tuesday approved the possible sale of fighter jets and other military equipment worth more than $20 billion to Israel, the Pentagon said.
The United Nations condemned Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir yesterday for leading prayers at a shrine in Jerusalem, holy to both Muslims and Jews and a frequent scene of violence, calling the move "unjustifiably provocative."
"We are against all efforts to change the status quo at the holy sites. The Al Aqsa Mosque, like any other holy site in Jerusalem, should be controlled by the existing religious administration," said UN spokesman Farhan Khan.
The High Commissioner for Security and Foreign Policy of the European Union, Josep Borelj, stated that he strongly condemns the provocations of the Israeli minister who advocates breaking the status quo.
Turkey also condemned the visit of the Israeli ultra-right, including the security minister, to the shrine in Jerusalem, calling it a provocation that could cause even greater tensions in the region.
Tuska's foreign ministry said the "provocative action" showed that Israel has no intention of achieving peace.
On Tuesday, Minister Ben Gvir joined hundreds of mostly religious and ultra-nationalist Jews in visiting the holy site, which once housed ancient Jewish temples and now houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, and encouraged them to pray.
That place is the third most important in Islam, and the most sacred for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount.
Based on a long-standing informal agreement, known as the status quo, Jews can visit the shrine but cannot pray there.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that close attention is being paid to actions and activities that cause greater insecurity and instability in the region, and that these are actions in which Ben Gvir participated.
Ben Gvir's visit was previously condemned by the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as by the ministries of Jordan and Egypt and several other Arab countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Minister Ben Gvir took a photo at a shrine marking the Jewish commemoration of the demolition of the two temples and called for the Palestinian Hamas, listed by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization, to fight instead of negotiating with the Palestinian group.
Early on Tuesday, according to an official of the administration of Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem (Waqf), about 2.500 Jews prayed, danced and raised the Israeli flag at the shrine.
Israel captured East Jerusalem where the Temple Mount is located in the Six Day War in 1967 and later annexed it, which is not recognized by much of the international community.
Israeli leaders claim that a united Jerusalem will remain the eternal capital of Israel. The Palestinians want that part of Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.
(Radio Free Europe)
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