Hamas: Israel insists on preventing displaced from returning to homes in northern Gaza

Israel is insisting that displaced Palestinians families will not return to their homes and areas in the northern Gaza Strip, but rather to tents that are built to shelter them, a leader in Hamas said yesterday.

The official told Al Jazeera that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to buy time and absorb the anger of the families of the prisoners of war held in Gaza and is creating obstacles to reaching a truce agreement.

As a result, he explained, the Israeli delegation sent to Cairo for the ceasefire-prisoner swap talks does not have the authority to reach an agreement and stressed Hamas’s position is know; stopping the aggression, ensuring Israeli forces withdraw from the Strip, the return of the displaced and the intensification of relief and reconstruction projects.

On Sunday, the American website Axios said Netanyahu rejected the Israeli negotiators’ request to give them more space to reach a deal with Hamas.

It added that most of the ministers in Netanyahu’s Likud Party agreed on the need to make concessions to reach an agreement, but he refused.

It pointed out that members of the Israeli war cabinet have also called on Netanyahu to show more flexibility, but he accused them of weakness and not knowing how to negotiate with Hamas.

An Israeli delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Sunday, in a new effort by mediators to reach a truce and prisoner exchange agreement in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements announced earlier four determinants for the success of any indirect negotiations with Israel to calm the situation in Gaza namely a comprehensive cessation of the Israeli aggression, the Israeli forces’ complete withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip, allowing the displaced to return to the northern Gaza Strip, and the entry of aid to meet the needs of all people in the Gaza Strip.

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