A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that Israel's response to the group's latest Gaza ceasefire proposal was negative after mediators handed it over.
Militants from the Hamas in Gaza © Mena Today
A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that Israel's response to the group's latest Gaza ceasefire proposal was negative after mediators handed it over.
"On Tuesday evening, our brothers, the mediators, informed us of the occupation’s position on the proposal ... it is a negative response in general and does not respond to the demands .. In fact, it retracts the approvals it previously provided to the mediators," Osama Hamdan told a press conference in Beirut.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government were responsible for the failure to negotiate a hostage release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and stop the fighting in Gaza.
Talks on a ceasefire have resumed this week in Qatar, but weeks of negotiations have so far failed to produce the agreement between Israel and Hamas that Washington hopes will alleviate the humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza.
Reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi and Ahmed Tolba
An apparent drone attack - claimed by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia - hit central Tel Aviv in the early hours of Friday, killing one man and slightly wounding four others, the Israeli military and emergency services said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his U.S. counterpart that military operations in the Gaza Strip have created conditions that would enable a hostage deal to be reached, Gallant's office said on Wednesday.
A meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the Middle East was briefly interrupted on Wednesday when two protesters stood with signs and yelled for the release of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.