Hamas rejects Israeli offer for Gaza ceasefire, says ‘no progress has been made’

Hamas has rejected an Israeli ceasefire offer at talks in Cairo, a senior Hamas official said on Monday. Israel and Hamas sent a team to Egypt for talks on Sunday, including Qatari and Egyptian mediators and CIA Director William Burns.

Byrne’s presence underscores growing pressure from the United States, Israel’s main ally, to reach a deal to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and provide aid to Palestinian civilians driven into poverty by six months of conflict.

But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka said Reuters, “We reject the latest Israeli proposal notified to us by the Egyptian side. The Politburo met today and decided on this.”

Another Hamas official said earlier Reuters Negotiations made no progress.

“The position of the occupying forces (Israel) has not changed, so there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official told reporters on condition of anonymity. Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”

Details of the proposal are unclear.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem on Monday that he had received a detailed report from the talks in Cairo, a day after Israeli troops withdrew from parts of southern Gaza.

“We continue to work hard to achieve our goals, starting with the release of all hostages and a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.

“This victory requires getting into Rafah and eliminating the terrorist camps there. This will happen – there is a date.”

He did not specify a date.

Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombings that leveled their homes. Israel says it is also the last important bastion of Hamas combat forces.

With more than a million people crowded into the southern city in desperate conditions, lacking food, water and shelter, foreign governments and organizations have urged Israel not to attack Rafah for fear of triggering a bloodbath.

Hundreds of residents living in tents in Rafah ventured back to their destroyed homes on Monday following the Israeli withdrawal.

Some ride in donkey carts, rickshaws and open carts, while others walk.

“It’s shocking, shocking… the level of damage is unbearable,” said resident Mohammed Abou Diab. “I’m going to my house, I know it’s destroyed. I’m going to clear it. Rubble, take out a shirt,” he added.

Palestinian medical officials said their teams had recovered more than 80 bodies from areas where soldiers had been operating over the past few months.

Western powers have expressed concern about the high death toll among Palestinian civilians and the humanitarian crisis caused by Israeli military attacks to destroy Hamas in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Some 33,207 Palestinians have been killed in the six-month conflict, Gaza’s health ministry said in an update on Monday. Most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people are homeless and many are at risk of famine.

According to Israeli statistics, Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel in cross-border attacks that sparked clashes on October 7, 2023. The Israeli army says more than 600 soldiers have since been killed in fighting.

any progress?

In Washington, a White House spokesman said the United States hoped to reach an agreement to release the hostages quickly because it would also lead to a ceasefire of about six weeks.

Over the weekend, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the Cairo talks were the closest the two sides have come to an agreement since a brief truce in November 2023, under which Hamas released nearly half of its hostages.

On October 7, Hamas seized 253 hostages, of which 133 are still being held. Negotiators said about 40 people would be released in the expected first phase of the deal.

Earlier on Monday, two Egyptian security sources and state-run Al-Qahera News said some progress had been made in the Cairo talks.

They said both sides had made concessions that could lead to a three-phase truce that would release all remaining Israeli hostages and resolve a long-term ceasefire in a second phase.

They said the concessions involved the release of hostages and Hamas demands for displaced residents to return to northern Gaza.

Mediators suggested that returns could be monitored by Arab forces in the presence of Israeli security deployments, which would later be withdrawn, they added.

Sources and Al-Qahera said the delegations left Cairo and negotiations were expected to continue within 48 hours.

“Main requirements”

However, a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters that the standoff continues due to Israel’s refusal to end the war, withdraw its troops from Gaza, allow all civilians to return to their homes and lift a 17-year blockade to quickly rebuild their homes. Coastal enclave.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the measures took precedence over Israel’s overarching demand for the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

“Hamas has been and is willing to be more flexible when it comes to prisoner exchanges, but there is no flexibility on our … main demands,” he said.

Israel has ruled out ending the war or withdrawing its troops from Gaza in the short term, saying its forces will not relax until Hamas no longer controls Gaza or poses a military threat to Israel.