Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Hamas Movement has proposed an agreement that would ceasefire in Gaza for four and a half months, leading to an end to the war, in response to a proposal sent last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators that was backed by the United States and Israel, Reuters reported on February 7.
According to a draft document seen by the news agency, the Hamas counter proposal envisions three phases, each lasting 45 days.
The proposal would see Hamas exchange the remaining Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack for Palestinian prisoners. The reconstruction of Gaza would begin, Israeli forces would withdraw completely and bodies and remains would be exchanged.
According to the Hamas counterproposal, all Israeli women hostages, males under 19, the elderly and sick would be released during the first 45-day phase in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. Remaining male hostages would be released during the second phase, and remains exchanged in the third phase. By the end of the third phase, Hamas would expect the sides to have reached agreement on an end to the war.
Hamas said in an addendum to the proposal that it seeks the release of 1,500 prisoners, a third of whom it wants to select from a list of Palestinians handed life sentences by Israel.
The ceasefire would also increase the flow of food and other aid to Gaza’s civilians, with Hamas demanding 500 trucks a day.
The responses to the agreement proposed by Hamas have been mixed. Citing anonymous sources, Sky News Arabia reported that Qatar told Hamas Israel would agree to the release of 3,000-5,000 Palestinian prisoners, whom Hamas could choose.
Sky News Arabia also said that Qatar is trying to soften Hamas’s demands for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, hoping to replace it with a pledge to push Israel to withdraw its forces.
According to the report, Qatar also offered the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the construction of new, better, refugee camps and renewed water and sewage services.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 13 news cited a senior Israeli official as saying that many of the demands in Hamas’s counterproposal are ones that the country can’t accept under any circumstances.
The official said the question being debated now is whether to reject those demands entirely, or to enter into further negotiations in an effort to soften them.
Separately, Israeli officials told Ynet that they cannot accept an end to the war. The officials also contradicted what was reported by Sky News Arabia by saying they can’t agree to a Hamas demand for 1,500 prisoners to be released, including many serving life sentences.
It’s worth noting that the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived overnight in Israel after meeting the leaders of mediators Qatar and Egypt in the most serious diplomatic push of the war so far.
Despite the presence of major differences between Israel and Hamas, the two sides appear to be closer than ever to an initial agreement to end the war in Gaza. So far, more than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Strip. On the Israeli side, the death toll has exceeded 1,400.
today’s west has a a rabidly neoliberal pathologically violent ruling class, that does devastation, not “diplomacy”. total victory – iraq, hopefully ukraine, or ignominious defeat – afghanistan & vietnam. zionism seems an especially virulent pathology – one never recognised by either the ussr or russia, though admired in western circles. so my bet is on “israeli officials”. hopefully i am wrong.
they really started taking over in a more concerted way around the world wars. after world war 2 the security aparatus quickly turned to pure evil and has been consolidating and compromising the whole power structure since then. they have been at this stuff, torturing and murdering innocent people, lying cheating and stealing on a larger scale ever since. some of these peoples families literally go all the way back to babylon with the evil garbage. this era is the culmination.
ya allah habibi we have many many demands and proposals to end war in gaza because me lost many many men died under rubble and under tunnels ,
but scumbag israeli says no no, they want to kill us all but i already escaped khan yunis! we need money, qatar pls send us money.
sinwar shattered all illusions about the idf. israel has been exposed as an incompetent, extremist, vulnerable state overly reliant on american resources
hamas proposed their denazification on 7 october
3 stages to improve earth…1. irradiate amerikuntistan. 2. create zoo by making amerika a cage so civilized mexicans can observe inferior species hillbillies with 13 genders 3. only 2 stages needed