Hamas will respond to Israel truce proposal ‘very soon’

A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that the movement will respond to the truce proposal put forward by Israel “very soon”, and stressed the need to agree on a permanent ceasefire. The Israeli proposal includes a 40-day ceasefire and a prisoner exchange of Israelis held in Gaza with Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Suhail Al-Hindi told Agence France-Presse yesterday that Hamas will deliver its response clearly within a very short period, although he would not say precisely when that was expected to happen. The Israeli government, which conveyed its latest offer to Hamas through Egyptian mediators late last week, was expecting a response by Wednesday evening, an official told the Times of Israel.

A source familiar with the negotiations said that Qatari mediators expect a response from Hamas within a day or two. The source claimed that Israel had made “concessions” including a period of “permanent calm” after an initial cessation of fighting and an exchange of prisoners. However, Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip remains a sticking point.

Al-Hindi added that the movement has “reservations” on some points within the proposal and had conveyed those reservations to the Egyptian side, but discussions continue. He added that there is “great interest from Hamas and all Palestinian resistance factions to end this insane war on the Palestinian people, which has consumed everything. However, it will not be at any cost.” Hamas, he added, “cannot under any circumstances raise the white flag or surrender to the conditions of the Israeli enemy.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Hamas’s demands to end the war on Gaza will not lead to a prisoner exchange deal. He reiterated his threat to invade Rafah, according to the Walla website, which cited Israeli and US officials. Netanyahu apparently told Blinken that Israel does not agree to stop the war, and that the invasion of Rafah “is not conditional on anything.”

An Israeli official told AFP that the government “will wait for a response until Wednesday evening” before “making a decision” about sending envoys to Cairo.

Mediation efforts to stop the Gaza war have intensified in recent days following a new proposal, negotiated between Tel Aviv and Cairo, that includes what Israeli media described as “major concessions.” The Israeli proposal for a prisoner exchange does not include a pledge to end the war, but rather “finalising the agreement on the necessary arrangements for the return of sustainable calm and announcing its entry into force before beginning the exchange of detainees and prisoners between the two parties.”

The Hamas delegation left Cairo on Monday evening, after meeting with Egyptian General Intelligence to discuss the new truce proposal, and will return “soon” to present the movement’s final response.

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