“I think what Hamas is doing is something they should have done a long time ago, there was indeed an agreed upon proposal … the Palestinians have accepted with no preconditions, with no changes and no alterations.”
Mediators in the ceasefire negotiations should “make it very clear” that Israel should respect what has already been agreed upon in the proposal submitted on July 2, Palestinian analyst and editor of the Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud has said.
The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas demanded that mediators present a plan that implements the proposal presented to the movement and agreed upon, which US President Joe Biden also supported.
The mediators “need to make it very clear that if Israel does not respect what has already agreed on, we’re (the Palestinians) not going to even be involved in the first place,” Baroud told the TRT World Now channel.
“I think what Hamas is doing is something they should have done a long time ago, is that there was indeed an agreed upon proposal that supposedly passed on from the American president or an Israeli proposal passed on by the American president, which the Palestinians have accepted with no preconditions, with no changes and no alterations,” he explained.
Now, he added, the Israelis have “changed their minds about it and they kept adding new and more conditions that made it impossible for Palestinians to accept.”
These conditions include “having total control over the Gaza-Egypt border, having control over central Gaza, the Netzarim area, searching every single Palestinian who is trying to go back home to the north of Gaza from the south …”
He added that “of course, no Palestinian group whether Hamas, the (Palestinian Islamic) Jihad, the Socialists or anyone else could possibly agree to this, and Israel knows this very well.”
US ‘Dirty Game’
Baroud said what is even more important is that Israel “attempts to thwart the agreements or the negotiations before they even take place by going and killing hundreds of Palestinians in schools.”
On Saturday, more than 100 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in the Daraj neighborhood of central Gaza.
“So Palestinians really have nothing to negotiate about unless the mediators, namely Egypt and Qatar, make it very clear that we are not going to be involved here as middlemen between people who are being massacred and people who are carrying out the massacres,” emphasized Baroud.
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He went on to say that the US is “playing a very dirty game” by telling Israel “in secret, you’ve got to behave yourself. Don’t use our weapons in that way,” referring to leaks coming from various news outlets such as Axios and Politico.
“Yet somehow, more and more weapons, 2,000-pound bombs are being dropped on the Palestinians coming from the US, and new shipments that have been sent to Israel after the original massacre in Jabalia, after the Ahly hospital massacre, after all these massacres.,” Baroud stressed.
“The Americans are playing a very dirty game, and it’s a political game. And the political game is, (to) give the impression to Americans, to Palestinian supporters in America, before the elections, that we are doing the best we can. And at the same time, do not change course with Israel whatsoever,” he added.
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Philadelphi Corridor
On the question of the Philadelphi Corridor, Baroud said Israel wants to turn Palestine or Gaza “into a concentration camp, or rather two concentration camps, one in the north and one in the south.”
He explained that it was the “recreation of a pre-existing plan that was known in the past, in the 70s and 80s, as the Sharon Fingers, which is dividing Gaza (in)to various bantustans that are much easier to manage, and it will allow Israel to ethnically cleanse whatever number of Palestinians that is demographically convenient to the Sinai Desert.”
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Netanyahu “has been trying to do so,” he added, “but he is failing miserably at it.”
‘Flexibility’ – Hamas
In a statement on Sunday, Hamas pointed out that it “has engaged in numerous rounds of negotiations and has shown all necessary flexibility and positivity to achieve the goals and interests of our people, to stop the bloodshed, and to halt the genocide against them.”
“This would pave the way for a prisoner exchange process, provide relief to our people, allow the return of displaced persons, and rebuild what was destroyed by the aggression,” the movement said.
In this context, it pointed out, Hamas “agreed to the mediators’ proposal on May 6, 2024, and welcomed President Biden’s announcement on May 31, 2024, as well as the related United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735.”
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However, Israel “responded with rejection, continued massacres against our people, and reiterated its stance that it is not serious about a permanent ceasefire. Its aggressive actions against our people were practical evidence of this.”
The movement also responded positively to the latest agreement dated July 2, 2024, it said.
However, Israel “met this with new conditions that had not been raised throughout the negotiation process and escalated its aggression against our people, committing more massacres, culminating in the assassination of the movement’s leader, the martyr Commander Ismail Haniyeh—may Allah have mercy on him—which confirmed its intentions to continue the aggression and not reach a ceasefire agreement.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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