Hamas denied it is pulling out of ceasefire talks, a day after an Israeli air strike on Gaza aimed at killing two top Hamas officials left at least 90 people dead and 300 injured.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, described as “baseless” an AFP report that the group will quit the talks. Israel’s latest “escalation” had been engineered to “block the way to reaching an agreement”, he added in a brief statement.
Earlier, AFP cited an official saying that Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh had told international mediators Qatar and Egypt that the organisation would halt negotiations due to Israel’s “lack of seriousness, continued policy of procrastination and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres against unarmed civilians”.
Separately, another Hamas official told the news service that military chief Mohammed Deif, a target of Saturday’s strike in the Khan Younis area of the central Gaza Strip, was alive. “Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” the operations of the Hamas military wing, said the official, who was not identified.
There has been no confirmation on the fate of Rafa Salama, the other target of the strike. Deif and Salama, commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, are two of the alleged masterminds behind the October 7 attacks on southern Israel in which almost 1,200 people killed and 250 abducted – 120 of whom are still being held in Gaza.
President Joe Biden put forward the ceasefire proposal in late May, describing a three-phase approach that would lead to a permanent end to the conflict, now into its tenth month. He said it had Israel’s full support – something that Israeli officials backed away from at the time.
Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union.
Earlier in July, a person familiar with the matter said Hamas had dropped its objections over the US-backed ceasefire proposal to halt the Gaza conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said a delegation was headed back to the region.
In a news conference on Saturday evening, Netanyahu suggested that he did not believe the strike would be a setback for the long-running talks.
Netanyahu said he stands by the outlines of the US-backed ceasefire proposal. But he contended Hamas has requested more changes, and that Israel remains committed to several goals, including the right to meet its war aims and the release of as many live hostages in the first phase of a three-stage deal.
Israel launched a punishing war against Hamas following the October 7 attacks. More than 38,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.
