Hamas rejects truce proposal and calls for a ‘permanent ceasefire’

Yesterday, Saturday, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas informed the intermediaries of Egypt and Qatar, who have been working for months to try to achieve a truce in the war in Gaza, of its rejection of the latest proposal, mediated by the USA, which it received last Monday and requests a “permanent ceasefire”.

“In Hamas we reaffirm our adherence to our demands and the national demands of our people,” Hamas said in a statement, in which it reiterated its four requirements for an agreement: a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal “of the occupation army “Israel from all of Gaza, the return of displaced people from the north of the Strip, and a greater influx of humanitarian aid and the beginning of reconstruction. “We also confirm our willingness to close an agreement,” the statement says, through “a serious and real exchange of prisoners between the two parties.”

According to leaks to the Israeli media and sources close to the negotiations in Cairo, the last agreement on the table included a six-week ceasefire, and a first exchange of 40 hostages for some 900 Palestinian prisoners; a hundred of them with long sentences.

Hamas also indicated Thursday that it would not be able, without a pause in the fighting, to gather more information about the whereabouts of the 129 hostages who remain captive, since some are in the hands of other factions or already “under the rubble.”