Hamas rejects latest ceasefire proposal, blames Benjamin Netanyahu

As Antony Blinken arrives in Israel, Hamas accuses Benjamin Netanyahu of ‘obstructing an agreement. for a truce and hostage exchange in Gaza.

Talk of a truce in Gaza has been dismissed by Hamas. Picture: AFP

Hamas has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal discussed in Doha over the weekend, blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “obstructing an agreement” for a truce and hostage exchange in Gaza.

The militant group said in a statement that Mr Netanyahu “sets new conditions and demands” to prolong the war in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu was “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators, obstructing an agreement, and (bears) full responsibility for the lives” of hostages in Gaza, the statement added.

The group released the statement as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on his ninth visit, in a bid to avert a wider regional conflagration.

Mr Blinken is set to travel on Tuesday to Cairo, where ceasefire talks will resume in the coming days.

Mr Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated that it was Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that must be pressured.

“Hamas, up to this moment, remains obstinate. It did not even send a representative to the talks in Doha. Therefore, the pressure should be directed at Hamas and (Yahya) Sinwar, not at the Israeli government,” Mr Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, referring to the Hamas chief.

On Sunday, Hamas dismissed optimistic talk by US President Joe Biden that a Gaza truce was nearer after negotiations in the Gulf emirate of Qatar.

“To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri said.

“We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”

He was responding to Mr Biden’s comment that “we are closer than we have ever been”.

The President spoke after two days of talks in Qatar where Washington tried to bridge differences between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group, which have been at war for more than 10 months in the Gaza Strip.

Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded. But the stakes have risen significantly since the late July killings of Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Their deaths prompted promises of retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah, and fears of a wider Middle East war.

Trying to avert a broader conflict, Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the region to push for a Gaza deal that they say could help avert a wider conflagration.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in the ­region on Sunday in a bid to help seal a deal.

Hamas officials have objected to “new conditions” from Israel in the latest proposal drawn up by Washington.

Israel’s delegation expressed “cautious optimism” about the prospects for an agreement after returning from Doha, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ­office said on Saturday.

“There is hope that the heavy pressure on Hamas from the United States and mediators will lead to the removal of their opposition to the American proposal, potentially allowing a breakthrough in the negotiations,” it said.

As efforts towards a truce continued, so did the bloodshed in Gaza and Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli air strike in the southern Nabatieh area killed 10 Syrians, including a woman and her two children.

The strike was among the deadliest in south Lebanon since the onset of near daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel’s military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.

In Hamas-run Gaza, the civil defence authority said an Israeli air strike killed 15 people from a single Palestinian family. The deaths in al-Zawaida helped push the Gaza health ministry’s war death toll to 40,074.

“We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered,” said relative Omar al-Dreemli.

The war has destroyed much of Gaza’s housing and healthcare infrastructure, leaving children vulnerable to preventable diseases. The UN appealed on Friday for seven-day pauses in the fighting so it could vaccinate children against polio, as the Palestinian health ministry reported Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years.

AFP