Hamas proposes four-and-a-half-month ceasefire in Gaza (document)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that total victory in Gaza was within reach, rejecting Hamas’s latest ceasefire offer to ensure the return of hostages still trapped in the besieged enclave.

Netanyahu renewed his pledge to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement, saying Israel had no choice but to dismantle Hamas.

“The day after tomorrow comes Hamas. All Hamas,” he told a news conference, insisting that a complete victory over Hamas was the only solution to the war in Gaza.

Hamas has proposed a four-and-a-half-month ceasefire in Gaza, during which all hostages would be released, Israel would withdraw its troops from the Strip and an agreement would be reached to end the war.

Reuters first reported the Hamas proposal, which comes in response to a proposal previously drafted by U.S. and Israeli spy chiefs and submitted to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to discuss the proposal with Netanyahu after holding talks with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt, who are acting as mediators. Blinken later met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Israel’s military offensive began on October 7 after operatives in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 27,585 Palestinians have been confirmed to have been killed, and thousands more are feared to be buried under the rubble. So far, there has been only one truce, which lasted just a week in late November.

Israel has previously said it will not withdraw its troops from Gaza or end the war until Hamas is eliminated.

But sources say Hamas is taking a new approach to its long-standing demand for an end to the war, now offering it as an issue to be addressed in future talks rather than as a condition for a truce.

A source familiar with the negotiations said Hamas’s counterproposal did not call for a permanent ceasefire from the start, but that an end to the war must be agreed before the hostages are eventually released.

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