Hamas chief accuses Israel’s Netanyahu of hindering efforts to reach Gaza ceasefire

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining efforts to reach a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency reported.

“Hamas is still keen on reaching an agreement that ends the aggression, guarantees Israeli troop withdrawal, and achieves a serious prisoner exchange deal,” Haniyeh said in a statement.

“The world has become a hostage to an extremist government, which has a huge number of political problems and crimes committed in Gaza,” he added, in reference to Netanyahu’s government.

Haniyeh accused the Israeli premier of “inventing justifications” to continue his offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Early Sunday, Netanyahu rejected calls to end the Gaza offensive in return for a hostage swap deal with Hamas, claiming that ending the war now would keep the Palestinian group in power.

Hamas, which is believed to be holding more than 130 Israeli hostages, held talks in Egypt on Sunday for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage swap with Israel.

Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News channel, citing a high-level Egyptian source, reported “positive progress” on Sunday in talks for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas demands an end to Israel’s ongoing offensive on Gaza in return for any hostage deal with Tel Aviv.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian Territory.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

READ: No end to Gaza war in exchange for hostage swap, Israel’s Netanyahu says