Qatar does the legwork as Hamas hopes for ceasefire
A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group wanted a ‘complete and comprehensive ceasefire’ in Gaza, after Qatar said a framework for a temporary truce was being proposed.
A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group wanted a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire” in Gaza, after mediator Qatar said a framework for a temporary truce was being proposed.
“We are talking first of all about a complete and comprehensive ceasefire, and not a temporary truce,” Taher al-Nunu said, adding that once the fighting stopped “the rest of the details can be discussed”, including a hostage release.
Qatar, with Egypt and the US, has led mediation efforts since war broke out on October 7 between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attacks on southern Israel.
Earlier on Monday Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said that meetings in Paris with CIA chief William Burns and top Israeli and Egyptian security officials had resulted in a framework for a phased truce.
He confirmed that the framework would see women and children hostages released first, with aid also entering the besieged Gaza Strip.
The parties were “hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process”, Sheik Mohammed said.
It was unclear whether Hamas had received the proposal from Qatar, which had mediated a one-week break in fighting in late November that led to the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages, as well as aid entering the Palestinian territory.
Qatar, which hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, also hosts Hamas’s political office and is the main residence of the Islamists’ self-exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
The Qatari leader warned an attack blamed on Iran-backed militants that killed three US troops in Jordan could escalate regional tensions.
“I hope that nothing would undermine the efforts that we are doing or jeopardise the process, yet it will definitely have an impact,” he said.
AFP
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