GAZA CITY: Hamas reiterated on Saturday its readiness to go ahead with the “remaining stages” of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as the first phase drew to a close with uncertainty over the next steps.
“We affirm our keenness to complete the remaining stages of the ceasefire agreement, leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction and lifting the siege,” the Palestinian group said, referring to terms of the deal previously outlined by mediators.
Hamas made their comment in a letter to an Arab League summit on Gaza due to be held on Tuesday.
The first phase of the Israel-Hamas truce is due to expire on Saturday, but negotiations on the next stage, aiming to secure a permanent ceasefire, have so far been inconclusive.
The ceasefire took effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sent a delegation to Cairo, and mediator Egypt said “intensive talks” on the second phase had begun with the presence of delegations from Israel as well as fellow mediators Qatar and the United States.
But by Saturday, there was no sign of consensus, and Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group rejected “the extension of the first phase in the formulation proposed by the occupation (Israel)”.
He called on mediators “to oblige the occupation to abide by the agreement in its various stages”.
Referring to a post-war Gaza, Hamas said it was “fully prepared to deal with any option that is agreed upon by the Palestinians” but said it “categorically” rejected “the attempt to impose any non-Palestinian projects or forms of administration or the presence of any foreign forces on any territory of the Gaza Strip”.
United States President Donald Trump has floated an idea for the United States to “take over” Gaza and for Palestinians to be resettled elsewhere, an idea the Palestinians themselves as well as neighbouring Egypt and Jordan have rejected.
Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in January said Gaza should be under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, which currently has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank.
Blinken said an unstated number of countries had offered to send troops and police to post-war Gaza.
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