In a statement distributed through the Telegram channel of the Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas, Osama Hamdan said that leaked reports of an upcoming truce don’t reflect reality.
Hamdan, a Beirut-based senior Hamas member said that “the leak of the Paris document details aims to pressure and create a state of weakness among the Palestinians.”
In fact, “the Israeli side refused to agree on the draft presented by the United States,” Hamdan said, describing the Paris draft as “an American proposal aimed at giving Netanyahu more time to prepare for a new attack” on Gaza.
“The American draft agreement aims to save face for Israel,” the Hamas official added, as the Palestinian priorities of stopping the (Israeli) aggression, ending the siege, bringing aid to besieged Gaza, and exchanging prisoners come later.
“There is an Israeli maneuver to escape all commitments, (and) promoting the Paris draft agreement is a propaganda situation that does not reach what we want.”
Hamdan’s comments came in response to two different events, one a report by Al-Jazeera suggesting that a draft proposal for a Gaza truce has been agreed on by Israel; and another, comments by US President Joe Biden that a truce is likely to start next Monday.
“President Biden practices political hypocrisy and participates in the crime of killing Palestinians,” Hamdan said in the statement.
Earlier, Al-Jazeera reported that “Informed sources” revealed that Israel “agreed to the terms of a preliminary framework for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
“The ceasefire would include an exchange of prisoners with the Palestinian Resistance, based on talks that took place in Paris,” it reported, adding that,
“the sources also said that Israel agreed on what is described as ‘gradual return’ of displaced people to the northern Gaza Strip, except for those of ‘military age’.”
Hamdan didn’t comment on the Al-Jazeera report.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 29,878 Palestinians have been killed, and 70,215 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel Files Report Back One Month after ICJ Ruling to Prevent Genocide
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Hezbollah needs to bring the war to Israeli civilians.