Gaza ceasefire deal uncertain as Hamas views US proposal as 'biased'

Group dissatisfied with lack of guarantees over indirect talks during proposed 60-day truce, sources say

A Palestinian woman flees after an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza city. Reuters

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The likelihood of a ceasefire in Gaza appeared tenuous on Friday after Hamas said the US truce proposal was “biased” and did not address the dire humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Sources told The National that the Palestinian group considers the proposal to be “distorted” and favouring Israel. It would most likely reject it in its current form, but not in its entirety.

Hamas said on Thursday that it was studying the proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff, which the White House said Israel had agreed to. It was not clear what its final decision would be.

The sources said Hamas was dissatisfied with the plan's lack of “genuine guarantees” that indirect negotiations with Israel during the proposed 60-day truce would lead to an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

“Hamas sees the Witkoff plan as biased in favour of Israel, distorted and incomplete,” said one of the sources. “It views it as a fulfilment of Israeli demands and does not appropriately treat the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“Hamas's response will be detailed and will mention the points that Hamas agrees to as well as those it rejects.”

Hamas says the plan left the prospect of an Israeli withdrawal and a long-term truce dependent on the progress of the negotiations, rather than the fruition of the process, the sources said.

Besides the 60-day truce, the plan provides for the staggered release of 10 hostages and the remains of 18 who died in captivity. In exchange, Israel will free hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the sources said.

The sources added that Hamas believes the plan ignores its suggestions on the timeline and dynamics of the handover of hostages. It also fails to treat the delivery of aid into Gaza as a human right, leaving the process closely linked to the proposed plan and, subsequently, subject to Israel's use of food as a weapon, they said without elaborating.

“In Hamas's view, it's a reproduction of the starvation policy adopted by Israel in Gaza, but only wrapped in diplomatic language,” the source said.

Under the plan, the resumption of humanitarian aid would involve 1,000 lorries a day to quickly address the widespread hunger and acute shortages of medicine and other essentials among Gaza's 2.3 million population, the sources said.

A distribution plan set out by UN experts for its personnel and members of affiliated agencies has been handed to Israeli authorities, the sources said.

Besides a long-term ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the proposed negotiations during the truce will tackle sensitive issues including the governing of postwar Gaza, the fate of Hamas's weapons and the exile abroad of its senior officials, the sources said.

Hamas has already suggested it would keep away from governing Gaza and any reconstruction effort and has said it is open to laying down and storing its weapons under international supervision, but not surrendering them.

It has also indicated that it will agree to some of its senior officials, as well as some from allied groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, leaving Gaza to live in exile – provided they are not attacked later by Israel.

The Gaza war, now in its 20th month, was caused by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. Hamas fighters also took about 240 hostage. Israel responded with a relentless military campaign that has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians and injured more than twice that number, Gaza's Health Ministry has said.

The war also laid to waste to large areas of the enclave.

The last ceasefire in Gaza went into effect on January 19. It expired on March 1, but the enclave remained relatively calm until March 18 when Israel resumed military operations.