Hamas has completed cease-fire talks in Cairo and is now waiting to see what mediators in talks with Israel produce at the weekend, an official with the Palestinian group said on Friday, in what appeared to be the most serious effort in weeks of negotiations to end the fighting.
Mediators have stepped up efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, hoping to prevent an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah where more than a million displaced people have taken refuge on the enclave’s southern edge.
Israel is threatening to attack the city if a ceasefire agreement is not reached soon. Washington urged its close ally not to do so, warning of huge civilian casualties if an attack on the city were to go ahead.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Egyptian mediators in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire last week, in his first visit to the Egyptian capital since December. Israel is expected to participate in talks in Paris this weekend with American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Two Egyptian security sources confirmed that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel will travel to Paris on Friday for talks with the Israelis, after finishing talks with Hamas chief Haniyeh on Thursday.
Israel has not publicly commented on the Paris talks.
A Hamas official, who asked not to be named, said his group had not offered any new proposals in talks with the Egyptians, but was waiting to see what the mediators would bring out of their upcoming talks with the Israelis.
“We discussed our proposal with them (Egyptians), and we will wait until they return from Paris,” said a Hamas official.
The last time similar talks were held in Paris, in early February, they drafted the first extended truce of the war, approved by Israel and the United States. Hamas responded with a counter-proposal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as a “delusion” at the time.
Hamas, which is still believed to be holding more than 100 hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that precipitated the war, says it will only release them as part of a ceasefire that ends with an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it will not withdraw until Hamas is eradicated, Reuters reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a “day after” plan for Gaza, his first official proposal to end the war in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
According to the document, presented to members of Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday, Israel will retain security control over all land west of the Jordan River, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza, territories where the Palestinians want to create an independent state.
In the stated long-term goals, Netanyahu rejects “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state. He says that a solution with the Palestinians will only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides, but he did not specify who would represent the Palestinian side.
In Gaza, Netanyahu highlights demilitarization and deradicalization as goals to be achieved in the medium term. It does not specify when that phase will begin or how long it will last. However, he conditions the recovery of the Gaza Strip, a large part of which was destroyed by the Israeli offensive, with its complete demilitarization.
Netanyahu proposes that Israel maintain a presence on the Gaza-Egypt border in the south of the enclave, and cooperate with Egypt and the United States in that area to prevent smuggling attempts, including at the Rafah crossing.
In order to replace Hamas’ rule in Gaza while maintaining public order, Netanyahu suggests working with local representatives “who are not affiliated with, or financially supported by, terrorist countries or groups.”
It calls for the closure of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, and its transfer to other international aid groups.
“The Prime Minister’s document on principles reflects a broad public consensus on the goals of the war and the replacement of Hamas rule in Gaza with a civilian alternative,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The document was circulated to members of the security cabinet to begin discussion on the matter.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel responded with an air and ground attack on blockaded Gaza that killed more than 29,400 people, according to Palestinian health officials. The offensive displaced most of the territory’s population and caused widespread famine and disease.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told Reuters that Netanyahu’s proposal was doomed, as were all Israeli plans to change the geographic and demographic reality of Gaza.
“If the world is truly interested in security and stability in the region, it must end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and recognize an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.
The war in Gaza has revived international calls, including Israel’s main ally, the United States, for a so-called two-state solution as the ultimate goal to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A number of senior Israeli politicians, however, oppose this.
The two-state solution has long been a key Western policy in the region, but little progress has been made toward Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Reuters reports.
