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29-02-2024
BEIRUT: A senior official from the Palestinian group Hamas has dampened hopes of an immediate ceasefire deal with Israel, saying there was still a long way to go before an agreement could be secured.
“The gap is still wide. We have to discuss a lot of points with the mediators,” Basem Naim, the head of political and international relations for Hamas, told a media outlet from Istanbul on Wednesday.
This comes after United States President Joe Biden said he hopes to have a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza by next Monday, with negotiations appearing to have gathered pace.
However, Naim said the Biden administration’s optimistic posture was not “related to the reality on the ground” and has more to do with domestic political considerations in a US election year.
“If the Americans want to be really optimistic, they have to end their game of double standards,” he said.
“They talk on one hand for stopping the aggression or for achieving a ceasefire and avoiding broadening the conflict into the region. But at the same time they are using the veto in the UN Security Council,” Naim said. “They are approving $14bn for Israel, they are securing Israel with more ammunitions.”
Naim had previously told media late on Tuesday that Hamas had not yet received an official truce proposal, but that meditators were working with the Israeli side to cement one.
While Hamas was willing to be flexible on some aspects of a potential deal, it would not do so at the expense of its “main, strategic goals”, Naim said.
He said the Palestinian group’s non-negotiable demands include: A final and total ceasefire, and not just a humanitarian pause; the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; and freedom of movement for Palestinians within Gaza.
Naim said Hamas was willing to be flexible on the timing and sequencing of its demands, as long as the total ceasefire begins on day one of the implementation of any agreement.
With regards to the exchange of prisoners and captives and plans for Gaza’s reconstruction, “there is some space for flexibility”, Naim added.
“Hamas has shown great flexibility from the beginning to achieve a ceasefire because we know every added day to this slaughter means 100 to 150 more Palestinian civilians killed,” the official said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
