By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said on Tuesday that Israel’s proposed ceasefire in its war in Gaza did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian militant factions.
The proposal was submitted to Hamas by Egyptian and Qatari mediators during negotiations in Cairo aimed at finding a way out of the devastating war in the Palestinian enclave, now in its seventh month.
Israeli forces on Tuesday intensified their bombardments on Deir Al-Balah and Rafah, in the center and south of the Gaza Strip, two areas they have not yet invaded, doctors and residents said.
An airstrike killed a municipal leader in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, Hamas said. Israel said he was a military officer.
The talks in Cairo, which also included the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, have so far not resulted in a decisive step towards a pause in the war.
Hamas said Tuesday that a new Israeli proposal did not meet its demands.
“The (Hamas) movement wishes to reach an agreement that puts an end to the aggression against our people, even if the Israeli position remains intransigent and has not met any of the demands of our people and our resistance,” said Hamas. Hamas. in a report.
However, he indicated that he would study the proposal further and provide his response to the mediators.
Hamas officials told Reuters on Monday that the group had rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal and that no progress had been made in the talks.
Hamas wants any agreement to guarantee an end to the Israeli military offensive, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and allow displaced people to return to their homes across the enclave.
Israel wants to secure the release of hostages captured by Hamas during the October 7 cross-border raid that sparked the conflict and neutralize Hamas – which rules Gaza – as a threat.
He said he wanted to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal in which he would release a number of Palestinians imprisoned in his prisons in exchange for the hostages in Gaza, but he was not prepared to end the military offensive .
RAFAH INVASION
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a date had been set for an invasion of Rafah, which he said is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.
Rafah is also the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by incessant Israeli bombings that have razed their original neighborhoods.
More than a million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organizations have urged Israel not to storm Rafah through fear of bloodshed.
Netanyahu said Israel’s goals were to free the hostages and ensure victory over Hamas.
“This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of terrorist battalions. It will happen – there is a date,” he said.
Of the 253 people captured by Hamas on October 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators discussed the release of around forty people during the first stage of a possible agreement.
Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel during the October 7 attack, according to Israeli figures.
Some 33,207 Palestinians have been killed during the six months of conflict, Gaza’s health ministry announced Monday. Most of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents are homeless and many face starvation.
Hamas has not released official figures on the number of its fighters killed.
ISRAEL INCREASES MILITARY PRESSURE
On the battle front, an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip killed municipal council head Hatem Al-Ghamri and four other civilians, reports said. the Hamas government media office and doctors. .
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had eliminated Ghamri, whom it described as a member of Hamas’s Maghazi Battalion involved in firing rockets against Israel.
Hamas said Ghamri was a public official and called his killing an “assassination.”
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Deir Al-Balah killed one Palestinian and injured 20 others, Hamas said.
In Rafah, a missile fired from a drone killed one man and injured several others, Hamas media said.
(Reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi; writing by Yomna Ehab and Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Angus MacSwan and Ros Russell)
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