Hamas to stay out of Gaza deal talks but may meet with mediators later By Reuters

Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Wednesday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks scheduled for Thursday in Qatar, dimming hopes of a deal that Iranian sources said could prevent an Iranian attack on Israel. . .

The US said it expected indirect talks to continue as planned in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Thursday, and that a ceasefire was still possible. However, Axios reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed a trip to the Middle East that was expected to start on Tuesday.

Three Iranian officials said only a ceasefire in Gaza would prevent Iran from retaliating against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh last month.

The Israeli government has said it will send a delegation to Thursday's talks, but Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, has asked for a workable plan to implement the proposal it has already accepted from multiple talks.

“Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, based on the UN Security Council resolution and Biden's speech, and the organization is willing to immediately start discussions on how to implement it,” said senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. he told Reuters.

“Going to new negotiations allows the operator to set new conditions and use the chaos of the negotiations to kill more people,” he added.

Fighting has not stopped in Gaza, where residents of the southern town of Khan Younis say Israeli forces have bombed homes in the east and stepped up shelling of tanks in areas east of the city center.

Israel said it was responding to Hamas rocket fire toward Tel Aviv on Tuesday and struck rockets and militants among 40 military targets in a 24-hour period, including central Gaza, Khan Younis, and west of Rafah in the south.

The armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces in several areas, and Palestinian health officials said Israeli strikes had killed at least 14 people so far Wednesday, mostly in the center and south.

Hamas also said its fighters had clashed with Israeli forces in another part of Palestine, the Israeli-controlled West Bank, where Israel said it had killed a number of soldiers.

'UNCERTAIN OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIPLOMACY'

The cease-fire agreement would aim to end fighting in Gaza and ensure the release of Israeli hostages held in the area in exchange for the return of many Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, but the two sides remain divided over the order and other issues.

Hamas wants an agreement to end the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza as a basic condition for the release of the hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will only agree to a pause in the fighting to allow as many hostages to return as possible. He has repeatedly said that the war can end when Hamas is completely eliminated.

Attacks led by Hamas on Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip on October 7 killed about 1,200 people, and more than 250 were taken hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli figures, in one of the most devastating blows to Israel in its history.

In response, the Israeli army destroyed a large part of Gaza, displaced most of the population, and killed about 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry, causing fear around the world. Israel says it has lost more than 300 soldiers. Hamas rocket attacks on its territory continued.

In an effort to prevent further escalation between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, after the latter killed a senior Hezbollah commander in the south of Beirut last month, Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, arrived in Beirut on Wednesday.

Hochstein will meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Amal militant group, which is allied with Hezbollah and has also fired rockets into Israel.

“We are facing uncertain opportunities for negotiations, which are now close to stopping the war and stopping the Israeli violence,” Mikati said in his speech before the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Mikati said that discussions with Arab and Western leaders are intense because of the seriousness of the situation in Lebanon and the region. (This story has been reposted to correct the spelling of the UN Security Council, in section 5)

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; additional reporting by Riham Alkousaa; editing by Philippa Fletcher)