- A senior Hamas official said the group will respond to US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza “very soon.”
- Hamas is “looking for gray areas that we could work with” and rejects a “take it or leave it” approach to the proposal, according to Mohammed Nazzal.
- Hamas will not accept the surrender of the rights of the Palestinian people after all their “sacrifices,” Nazzal said.
A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group will respond to US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza “very soon.”Deliberations between Hamas and other Palestinian factions as well as with mediators Qatar, Turkey and Egypt are ongoing, Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas’s politburo, said to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV in comments aired on Friday. Hamas is “looking for gray areas that we could work with” and rejects a “take it or leave it” approach to the 20-point proposal announced on Monday, said Nazzal, who’s based in the Qatari capital of Doha along with many other Hamas political leaders. Hamas will not accept the surrender of the rights of the Palestinian people after all their “sacrifices,” he said. Trump unveiled the plan alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, calling it an “historic day for peace” as he tried to end a two-year war that’s devastated Gaza, led to growing global isolation of Israel and roiled the wider Middle East.On Tuesday, Trump said Hamas had “about three or four days” to decide. Netanyahu has accepted the plan and it’s unclear if he would be willing to negotiate certain points with Hamas. He said that if Hamas rejects the proposal, Israel will continue with its offensive in northern Gaza until the group is destroyed.The proposal stipulates Hamas must free all the Israeli hostages it holds — 48 people, with Israel believing around 20 are still alive — within three days of a deal being enacted. The group, designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union and others, will disarm and members who commit to peaceful co-existence with Israel will be given amnesty. Hamas objects to the lack of a clear timeline for an Israeli troop withdrawal and the fact some soldiers would remain in the enclave. The plan says Israeli forces can be in a buffer zone “until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.” Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, spoke to Bloomberg on the likelihood of Trump’s plan being accepted by Hamas. Trump’s plan has “many gaps” that must be addressed, Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, told local state news outlet Al-Qahera on Thursday. The proposal does back away from the US president’s earlier idea of driving Gaza’s 2 million people into exile and turning it into a “riviera.” It also promises a significant increase in aid deliveries and global involvement to rebuild the shattered territory. Hamas leaders abroad might amenable to Arab and American pressure to accept the plan, Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East policy at the Bahrain-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said to Bloomberg Television on Friday.
Yet members “who are still fighting are very much hardcore fighters,” he said. “If they are still fighting despite all of the losses that Hamas has suffered in terms of personnel, in terms of capabilities, then they are unlikely to lay down their weapons and agree to the Trump plan, especially since it lacks any guarantees for a permanent ceasefire or a comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip.”
Negotiations over a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, mediated mainly by Qatar and Egypt, have repeatedly fallen through over disagreements surrounding the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the disarming of Hamas.