The Hamas response included a few comments, but was mostly positive and it has already been handed over to the Israeli side.
The Qatari Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said on Tuesday that Doha has received the official response by the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas regarding a ceasefire proposal, which resulted from a recent meeting in Paris.
According to the Qatari official, the Hamas response included a few comments, but was mostly positive and it has already been handed over to the Israeli side.
The Qatari statement was made during a joint press conference between Al Thani and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
According to Al Thani, the Hamas response is a source of optimism but he refrained from delving into details, due to “the sensitivity of the current stage.”
The Hamas Response
Hamas had announced that it had delivered its official response to the two mediators, Qatar and Egypt, following consultations within the movement, and also between the movement and other Palestinian Resistance parties.
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According to the Hamas statement, the group had dealt with the suggestions in the Paris proposal positively to ensure a comprehensive ceasefire and an end to the Israeli aggression, an end to the siege, and a prisoner exchange.
For its part, Al-Aqsa TV Channel had quoted an unnamed Hamas source as saying that, following inner Palestinian consultations, a few amendments were added to the Paris proposal, including a clear timetable.
The amendments also dealt with the ceasefire, the reconstruction of Gaza, the return of the displaced refugees, the creation of immediate shelters, the immediate exit of the wounded, and ending the Israeli siege.
The American Response
Blinken, who is, once more, back in the Middle East, said that he will be discussing the Hamas response with the Israeli government on Wednesday.
Blinken, who still refuses to call for a permanent truce, claimed that Washington still believes that an agreement is possible, but that a lot of work is still needed to reach a framework for agreement.
The White House also commented on the Hamas response. John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, said that the Paris proposal is a serious suggestion to ensure the release of the Israeli captives in Gaza in exchange for a long truce in the Strip.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted anonymous Israeli sources as saying that Hamas has set impossible conditions.
According to these officials, Israel will not stop the war as they understand Hamas response to be a negative one.
Israel is being accused of committing genocide in Gaza. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 27,585 Palestinians have been killed, and 66,978 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
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Moreover, at least 8,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all of the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
I hope Hamas will require Israel to get out of Palestine south of the 1967 border area.
the settlers to move north of the 1967 border area, to keep Israeli military out of a new Palestine, and have all Palestinians in Israeli prisons released. Then it would be OK to release Israelis in prison in Gaza.