The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas agreed late last night to a new ceasefire proposal in the Gaza Strip put forward by mediators Egypt and Qatar, expressing hope that Israel would not obstruct the plan, Anadolu reported.
“We received a proposal from our brothers in Egypt and Qatar, who are mediating the talks,” Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, said in a televised address marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
“We have positively engaged with the proposal and accepted it, and we hope that the occupation will not sabotage it or undermine the efforts of the mediators,” he said.
Al-Hayya did not reveal details about the proposal.
“We fully adhered to our commitments and worked with the mediators to ensure that Israel respected its commitments. However, it annulled the entire agreement after the first phase was concluded,” he said.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Tel Aviv has submitted an alternative proposal to the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement, which calls for Hamas to release ten prisoners instead of the five envisaged in the Egyptian proposal.
It quotes well-informed sources as saying that Israel hopes to reach a ceasefire agreement before the Jewish holiday of Passover, which falls between April 12 and 20.
Yesterday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Tel Aviv had responded to the mediator’s proposal with an alternative, which is fully in line with Washington, without disclosing the content of the proposal.
The Israeli military launched a new wave of airstrikes on Gaza on March 18, killing more than 920 people, wounding more than 2,000 others and violating the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
Nearly 50,300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 114,000 have been injured in the brutal Israeli military assault on Gaza since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in November last year for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide charge before the International Court of Justice.
