Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar holds firm on Gaza ceasefire demands

Yahya Sinwar told Arab negotiators he’d accept a peace deal only if Israel commits to a permanent ceasefire, in his first response to a proposal introduced by Joe Biden.

Hamas’s leader in Gaza has told Arab negotiators that he would accept a peace deal only if Israel commits to a permanent ceasefire, affirming the militant group’s position in his first response to a proposal introduced by President Biden to end the eight-month war.

“Hamas will not surrender its guns or sign a proposal that asks for that, ” Arab mediators said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar told them in a brief message they received Thursday, as two top U.S. officials, including Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, hold talks in the region aimed at jump-starting long-stalled negotiations.

Biden publicly aired what he described as an Israeli peace plan in remarks from the White House on Friday, pressing both sides to overcome substantive differences and distrust and looking to rally international support for the deal.

The response from Sinwar came as the Israeli military struck a United Nations school that had been turned into a shelter in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, targeting what it said was a Hamas facility there. Palestinian officials in Gaza said at least 40 people were killed, including 14 children and nine women.

The Israeli military said its air strike targeted three classrooms where 20 to 30 militants were hiding, including some who belong to a unit that participated in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. The military listed nine militants it said had been killed, including seven from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which like Hamas is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organisation and participated in the Hamas-led attack.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the names of more militants killed in the strike would be revealed later, and that steps were taken before the strike to avoid civilian casualties. The Israeli military didn’t provide information on civilian deaths.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. expects Israel to be fully transparent about who was killed in the strike. He said that Israel had a right to target militants in the school but that it also had an obligation to take every possible step to minimise harm to nearby civilians.

“Even if the intent is what the [Israeli military] has said publicly, that they were trying to use a precision strike just to target 20 to 30 militants, if you have seen 14 children die in that strike, that shows that something went wrong,” Miller said. “Those aren’t terrorists,” he said of the children.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency was unable to confirm if Hamas was using the compound, where about 6,000 people were staying. “We remind all parties to the conflict that schools and other U.N. premises must never be used for military or fighting purposes,” said UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma.

An Israeli air strike in southern Gaza last week that led to the deaths of dozens of civilians has added to international pressure on Israel over how it is carrying out its war against Hamas. Israel said two senior Hamas officials were killed in last week’s strike.

Such incidents are also piling pressure on Biden to find a way to end the war, which has divided his base and become a political liability before presidential elections in the fall. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, toward a possible ceasefire agreement have faltered for months.

The U.S. has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Hamas to accept the latest proposal. The three-phase plan outlined by Biden would begin with a complete ceasefire over six weeks, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas of Gaza and the release of some hostages held by Hamas. The second phase would see a permanent end to the hostilities, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of remaining hostages. Phase three would involve a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.

Israel and Hamas said that the terms set out by Biden don’t accurately reflect what has been offered to the militant group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated after Biden’s speech that he wouldn’t accept any deal that commits to a permanent end to the war, and one of his senior advisers criticised the draft resolution on similar terms.

“The notion that Israel will permit an armed genocidal terrorist organisation on its southern border, and would agree to end the war before Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed, all the hostages are freed, and we have ensured that Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future, is a nonstarter,” the adviser, Ophir Falk, said Thursday.

Hamas said in a statement circulated on Thursday that the plan outlined by Biden last week would be largely acceptable.

White House officials have publicly put the onus for accepting the plan on Hamas and said that Biden accurately represented the Israeli position.

The leaders of 17 countries including the U.S. issued a joint statement on Thursday calling on Israel and Hamas “to make whatever final compromises are necessary to close this deal.” Since the war began, more than 170 UNRWA buildings – most of which were schools-turned-shelters – have been struck, killing more than 450 displaced people, according to the agency. At least 192 UNRWA staffers have been killed since the war began eight months ago.

UNRWA in the past has said some of the facilities it has vacated in Gaza since the war began have been used by others, including Hamas.

The Israeli military said the militants it hit in Nuseirat on Thursday weren’t launching attacks from the UNRWA building, but were coming and going to conduct operations against Israeli forces in the area.

Hagari said the strike was the fifth time this month that Israel had acted against militants who were operating out of U.N. facilities.

The Israeli military has intensified its campaign against Hamas in the central Gaza Strip this week, including launching air strikes and sending ground troops into Al Bureij refugee camp and the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.

Sahar Sa’eed recently moved with her family to the UNRWA shelter in Nuseirat after they were forced to flee Al Bureij. When the air strike hit the compound, she said she ran to check on her father and brothers. “All I saw was blood and body parts scattered in the midst of fire,” she said.

Sa’eed, who is in her 20s, found her father and two siblings killed in the strike. “It’s a most painful sight. We thought we were safe,” she said, adding that she and her surviving brother would return to the shelter because they don’t know where else to go.

The European Union said last week that it was concerned about discussions in the Israeli parliament about designating UNRWA as a terrorist organisation and removing its staff’s immunities and privileges. “The EU is a strong supporter to the agency, and remains, with its member states, its biggest donor,” the bloc said. Israel has alleged that some UNRWA employees have had links to Hamas.

Some facilities, including schools and U.N. sites, receive elevated protected status under international humanitarian law, though that status can change during the course of a war.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian officials. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants. The war began after Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people in Israel, also mainly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Dow Jones