Hamas accepts Gaza truce plan
GAZA: Hamas has accepted a new ceasefire proposal for Gaza, a senior member from the group said Monday, after a fresh diplomatic push to end more than 22 months of war. Mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, have struggled to secure a lasting truce in the conflict, which has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The Zionist offensive has killed more than 62,004 Palestinians in Gaza.
But after receiving a new proposal from meditators, Hamas said it was ready for talks. 'The movement has submitted its response, agreeing to the mediators' new proposal. We pray to God to extinguish the fire of this war on our people,' senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Facebook. Earlier a Hamas source told AFP the group accepted the proposal 'without requesting any amendments'.
Egypt said it and Qatar had sent the new proposal to the Zionist entity, adding 'the ball is now in its court'. The Zionist entity has yet to respond. A Palestinian source familiar with the talks said mediators were 'expected to announce that an agreement has been reached and set a date for the resumption of talks', adding guarantees were offered to ensure implementation and pursue a permanent solution.
According to a report in Egyptian state-linked media Al-Qahera, the deal proposed an initial 60-day truce, partial captive release, release of some Palestinian prisoners and provisions to allow for the entry of aid. The proposal comes more than a week after the Zionist entity's security cabinet approved plans to expand the war into Gaza City and nearby refugee camps, which has sparked international outcry as well as domestic opposition.
Earlier, an Islamic Jihad source said 'the remaining captives would be released in a second phase', with negotiations for a broader settlement to follow. They added that 'all factions are supportive' of the Egyptian and Qatari proposal. US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be.'
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Zionist entity 'will agree to an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war'. Meanwhile, in a now familiar scene in Gaza, AFP footage from the southern city of Khan Yunis showed crowds of mourners kneeling over the shrouded bodies of their loved ones who were killed seeking aid the day before.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, visiting the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Monday, said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani was visiting 'to consolidate our existing common efforts in order to apply maximum pressure on the two sides to reach a deal as soon as possible'. Alluding to the dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living in the Gaza Strip, where UN agencies and aid groups have warned of famine, Abdelatty stressed the urgency of reaching an agreement. 'The current situation on the ground is beyond imagination,' he said. Egypt said on Monday it was willing to join a potential international force deployed to Gaza, but only if backed by a UN Security Council resolution and accompanied by a 'political horizon'.
On the ground, Gaza's civil defense agency said Zionist forces killed at least 11 people across the territory on Monday, including six killed by Zionist fire in the south. Rights group Amnesty International meanwhile accused the Zionist entity of enacting a 'deliberate policy' of starvation in Gaza and 'systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life'.
'It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that (the Zionist entity) has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction – which is part and parcel of (the Zionist entity's) ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,' Amnesty said in a report citing testimonies of displaced Palestinians and medical staff who treated malnourished children.
Thousands of Palestinians fearing an imminent Zionist ground offensive have left their homes in eastern areas of Gaza City, now under constant Zionist bombardment, for points to the west and south in the shattered territory. A Zionist armored incursion into Gaza City could displace hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have been uprooted multiple times during the war.
Ahmed Mheisen, Palestinian shelter manager in Beit Lahiya, a war-devastated suburb abutting eastern Gaza City, said 995 families had departed the area in recent days for the south. With the Zionist offensive looming, Mheisen put the number of tents needed for emergency shelter at 1.5 million, saying the Zionist entity had allowed only 120,000 tents into the territory during a January-March ceasefire. The UN humanitarian office said last week 1.35 million people were already in need of emergency shelter items in Gaza.
'I am heading south because I need to ease my mental state,' Mousa Obaid, a Gaza City resident, told Reuters. 'I do not want to keep moving left and right endlessly. There is no life left, and as you can see, living conditions are hard, prices are high, and we have been without work for over a year and a half.'
'Existing tents where people are living (in the south) have worn out and won't protect people against rainwater. There are no new tents in Gaza because of the (Zionist) restrictions on aid at the border crossings,' Palestinian economist Mohammad Abu Jayyab told Reuters. He said some Gaza City families had begun renting property and shelters in the south and moved in their belongings. 'Some people learned from previous experience, and they don't want to be taken by surprise. Also, some think it is better to move earlier to find a space,' Abu Jayyab added. – Agencies
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