Hamas blames Israel and US over stalemate in Gaza ceasefire negotiations

Palestinian militant group questions US assertions that Israel is on board with President Biden's plan

Palestinian children attending class in a tent school in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza. EPA

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Hamas on Thursday said it had responded positively to the ceasefire proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden and blamed Israel for the apparent stalemate in efforts to bring the Gaza war to an end.

The Palestinian militant group also accused US Secretary of State Antony Blinken of seeking to exonerate Israel from responsibility for the lack of progress during negotiations.

It said comments made by Mr Blinken show that the US is complicit in “the brutal war of genocide against our Palestinian people" and said Washington was allowing the "occupation to continue its crime with full US political and military cover”.

Hamas on Tuesday gave its response to President Biden’s proposals, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, effectively rejecting them without a guarantee of a permanent ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The proposals envisage a six-week ceasefire, a prisoner and hostage swap between Israel and Hamas as well as the reconstruction of Gaza and a flow of adequate humanitarian aid to the coastal enclave battered by eight months of war.

Palestinians on the move following an Israeli miltary operation at Al Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. EPA

The two sides, according to the plan, are supposed to use that six-week period to negotiate an agreement on the second phase, which Mr Biden said would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza.

The temporary ceasefire would become permanent, but only if the two sides agree on the details.

Hamas, according to sources with direct knowlege of the negtiations, is concerned that Israel will resume military operations in Gaza once all hostages are freed.

Thursday’s Hamas statement made no mention of the changes the group wants to see in the proposals before accepting it. It said it had “expressed its positive position” on Mr Biden’s plan and pointed out that Israel has yet to officially state its position, despite US assertions that it had agreed to the plan.

“While Blinken continues to talk about Israel’s approval of the latest proposals, we haven’t heard any Israeli official voicing approval,” said the Hamas statement.

The statement came just a few hours after US National security adviser Jake Sullivan pushed back against assertions that Israel is not fully committed to the proposals.

“Israel has supplied this proposal. It has been sitting on the table for some time. Israel has not contradicted or walked that back,” Mr Sullivan said in Italy, where Mr Biden is attending the annual Group of Seven leaders’ summit.

“To this day they stand behind the proposal,” he said. “I don’t think that there is a contradiction in the Israeli position.”

A Palestinian walks among the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters

Mr Sullivan repeated that Hamas had responded by offering an amended proposal and said that the objective remains “to figure out how we work to bridge the remaining gaps and get to a deal.

“The goal is to try to bring this to a conclusion as rapidly as possible.”

In Doha on Wednesday, Mr Blinken blamed Hamas for the stalemate, saying some of the changes to the proposals it suggested could work while others were not workable.

The US and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar, he said, will press ahead to bridge gaps between the group and Israel.

“Hamas could have answered with a single word: Yes,” he told a news conference in the Qatari capital, the final step of a four-nation Middle East tour that also saw him visit Egypt, Israel and Jordan.

It was his eighth tour of the region since the Gaza war broke out in October.