Hamas agrees to negotiate hostage release even without a permanent ceasefire: “The ball is in the Israelis’ court”, they say
Hamas has agreed to negotiate the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners in the absence of a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a senior official from that movement said this Sunday.
“Hamas demanded that Israel accept a total and permanent ceasefire as a condition for negotiations,” he said, quoted by the France-Presse agency, adding that “this point has been overcome, since the mediators have committed to , while negotiations are ongoing, the ceasefire remains in force.”
The person responsible said, according to AFP, that Hamas “withdrew the condition it had placed for a permanent ceasefire and agreed to begin negotiations”, at a time when mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire are being relaunched.
That person responsible, who France-Presse does not identify, stated that Hamas informed the mediators that it intended three phases to be implemented: firstly, the entry into Gaza of 400 aid trucks per day; then, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the “Philadelphia corridor and the Rafah crossing”, located between southern Gaza and Egypt, followed by a “final phase” that would consist of the total withdrawal from Palestinian territory.
“The ball is in the Israelites’ court, if they want to reach an agreement then it is very likely that this will happen,” said this source, estimating that the talks could take “two to three weeks, (…) if Israel does not block the negotiations as before”.
On Wednesday, Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, presented new “ideas” to end the war. Therefore, Israeli envoys will return to Doha, the capital of Qatar, in the next few days for talks with mediators from that country, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who highlights the persistence of “differences” with Hamas.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack against Israel, on October 7, 2023, which caused the deaths of around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a major military offensive in Palestinian territory that killed 38,153 people, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
