“We are willing to continue negotiating”

Hamas announced this Thursday that its position on the latest Israeli proposal is negativealthough he has not yet given a definitive answer.

“The position on the current document being negotiated is negative,” he said. Osama Hamdansenior representative of the Palestinian faction in Lebanon, in an interview on local television.

Hamas, Hamdan said, “This does not mean that the negotiations stopped. Although the group does not accept the current Israeli proposals without modifications, we are willing to continue negotiating“.

Hamdan followed the same line as the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who a little earlier had said is studying with a “positive spirit” a truce proposal in the war in the Gaza Strip between the Palestinian movement and Israel, without giving its consent.

During a call to Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, Haniyeh said he “appreciates the role played by Egypt and highlighted the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal,” according to a statement posted on the official Hamas website. .

Shortly before, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre had stated that “no response has yet come from Hamas” to the latest truce proposal in Gaza.

For his part, according to Channel 12 of Israeli television, Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, considers the proposed truce agreement like “a trap.”

According to Sinwar, “the proposal that is on the table is not an Egyptian proposal, but a disguised Israeli proposal.”

Hamas hopes to send a delegation to Cairo “as soon as possible” to resume negotiations for a ceasefire, according to a statement from the Palestinian Islamist group.

Haniyeh confirmed that a negotiating delegation will travel soon to the Egyptian capital to “complete the current discussions with the aim of maturing an agreement that meets the demands of our people and stops the aggression.”

The truce proposal that is on the table foresees the exchange of all Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for the release of 1,290 Palestinian captives in Israeli penitentiaries.

The initiative also includes a pause of combat in three phaseslasting 124 days, in which a cessation of military operations would be applied in parallel with an increase in humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, according to the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, close to the Hezbollah group.

The document does not include Hamas’s main demand, which is the end of the war, but it has served to create a basis for negotiations that could soon lead to an agreement, according to the Lebanese channel Al Mayadin, which cites Palestinian sources. Israel has offered only an extended pause.

The war in Gaza began after the unprecedented Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel in which insurgents killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 more hostage. Hamas is believed to have around 100 Israelis captive in Gaza and the remains of at least 30 more.

With agency information