Hamas cornered but may drag heels on Trump ceasefire plan

Militant group claims it needs time to locate and recover bodies of deceased hostages

Internally displaced Palestinians walk past a destroyed building in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. EPA

Hamas is unlikely to reject the US plan to end the war in Gaza, but it is expected to suggest amendments to sections that it opposes, sources close to mediators told The National on Tuesday.

Hamas is finding itself in a difficult position after several Arab countries, including Qatar and Egypt, endorsed US President Donald Trump’s plan announced at the White House on Monday.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already accepting the roadmap, attention has now shifted to the Palestinian militant group, which recognises that rejecting the proposal outright could carry heavier consequences than ever before.

Full text of US plan for immediate end to Gaza war

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Mr Trump said on Tuesday that Hamas has three or four days to respond to his plan or face the consequences. "Hamas is either going to be doing it or not, and if it's not, it's going to be a very sad end," he told reporters.

The sources said Hamas leaders were unhappy with the plan's provision for a surrender of its weapons, underground tunnels, and arms manufacturing centres.

Instead, Hamas wants to hand over its weapons to Arab monitors who would, in turn, store them, the sources clarified. While Hamas is prepared to allow Israel to maintain a secure border zone inside Gaza, it insists that Israel withdraws from the rest of the coastal enclave and retain no security role there.

Moreover, said the sources, Hamas wants to release the 48 hostages it is holding – only 20 of them are believed to be alive – in stages rather than within 72 hours of Israel accepting the plan, as provided for under Mr Trump's roadmap. They said Hamas has lost contact with the operatives holding the hostages because of the intensity of the Israeli army's operations in Gaza.

Hamas has also buried the deceased hostages in the tunnels, which have since been destroyed by Israeli air strikes, the sources added. Hamas needs time to locate and exhume the bodies, they explained.

Generally, said the sources, Hamas was unhappy with the lack of timelines and specifics for some of the provisions of the plan, leaving Israel with considerable leeway to delay the process or derail it altogether.

“Every provision in the plan is kind of tied to other provisions and that makes it complicated,” said one of the sources. “It's booby-trapped.”

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The plan, however, has been welcomed in principle by key Arab nations, including Egypt and Qatar, which have together with the US been trying without success for months to broker a Gaza ceasefire.

The plan provides for a ceasefire, the release of hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails in exchange for the 48 hostages, the flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, and an amnesty for Hamas leaders wishing to disassociate themselves from violence and leave Gaza.

Significantly, the plan does not provide for the removal of Palestinians, voluntarily or otherwise, from Gaza. It also prohibits Israel from occupying or annexing the territory.

It embraces the principle of a two-state solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but without giving a timeline for the creation of an independent Palestinian state or specifying its territory.

It also bars Israel from annexing the occupied West Bank, something that extremist members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government have been clamouring for in recent months.

Disadvantageous

In its entirety, however, the plan, if implemented, signals the potential demise of Hamas as an armed movement. Hamas has repeatedly said it will not give up its arms unless a comprehensive solution is found for the conflict, but suggested it was prepared to stay away from the postwar government and reconstruction of the territory.

An official from a Palestinian faction allied with Hamas said the militant group was likely to “maintain silence for the longest possible period, then come up with a statement, possibly with the other Gaza factions, that does not reject the plan”.

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The endorsement of the plan by Qatar and Egypt, the two US-allied nations with the closest links to Hamas, has left the Palestinian group little choice, he added.

The involvement of the pair, along with other countries in the region, in a stabilisation force proposed by the plan to take charge of security in Gaza, will cushion the fallout from its defeat in the war against Israel, said the official.

“Israel is supposed to withdraw from Gaza and be replaced by Arab forces. There is nothing in this that is disadvantageous to Hamas,” he added.

Cautioning that Hamas hardliners might still be wielding enough influence to persuade the group to reject the deal, the official said the majority in the group's upper echelons “know that this time they will have to accept (the US plan), given the massive humanitarian situation”.

The Gaza war was caused by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel nearly two years ago that left about 1,200 people dead. The assailants also took another 250 hostages.

Israel's response to the attack has been a relentless military campaign that has to date killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health authorities. The war also left most of Gaza reduced to rubble and created a humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands facing hunger and, in some areas, outright famine.

The Israeli army's conduct in Gaza has been designated as genocide by the UN, which has led to the growing international isolation of Israel.

On Monday night, a Hamas official told The National that the group is studying the plan, but added that “there are non-negotiable principles that we cannot give up”.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari confirmed in a press conference on Tuesday that mediators from Qatar and Egypt met Hamas's negotiating team and handed over the plan. He added that there will be another meeting on Tuesday that will be attended by Turkish officials to consult on the plan.

“Hamas's negotiating team has promised to study the plan responsibly,” he added.