Israel vows to destroy Hamas in response to unprecedented Oct. 7 attack (File)
Cairo, Egypt:
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for talks with Egyptian officials, the Palestinian group said, days after mediators said prospects for a new truce with Israel had dimmed.
A statement said the head of Hamas’s political bureau in Qatar would “discuss the political situation and the situation on the ground with Egyptian officials.”
The delegation will also discuss “efforts to halt aggression, provide relief to citizens, and achieve the goals of the Palestinian people.”
Despite a series of meetings with Israeli and Hamas negotiators last week, mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have made no progress in their efforts to pause more than four months of relentless fighting.
“The situation in the past few days is indeed not optimistic,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
In a statement on Saturday, Haniyeh reiterated Hamas’s demands, although some of them were dismissed as “delusional” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The demands include a ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, an end to Israel’s blockade of the territory and safe housing for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Its retaliatory offensive has killed 29,195 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled region.
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