News Desk - The Cradle
Yahya Sinwar confirmed to negotiators that Hamas will accept nothing less than a permanent end to the war, according to a WSJ report
“Hamas will not surrender its guns or sign a proposal that asks for that,” Sinwar told Arab mediators. The message came as CIA director William Burns is back in Qatar’s capital, Doha, to continue talks, this time aimed at reinforcing the ceasefire proposal presented by US President Joe Biden on 31 May.
Biden presented the proposal in a speech last week, saying Israel had offered it. Tel Aviv later acknowledged that it allowed the negotiating team to present the plan to mediators, but officials have since stressed that the draft unveiled by the US president was “incomplete.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Monday that Tel Aviv will not agree to a permanent ceasefire until Hamas is defeated. “The war will be stopped for the purpose of returning hostages, and then we will proceed with a discussion,” he said on Monday.
Tel Aviv has rejected a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution that Washington aims to put to the vote.
According to a copy of the US-proposed ceasefire plan, obtained exclusively by Middle East Eye (MEE), the initiative does not include a permanent ceasefire. Instead, it calls for a 42-day “temporary cessation of military operations” that will be followed by “open-ended” negotiations for a permanent ceasefire.
The “temporary ceasefire” could potentially be extended after the 42-day phase “as long as negotiations on the conditions of stage two of [the] agreement are ongoing,” the document reads, according to MEE.
The plan violates Hamas’ main terms for an agreement, most prominently a permanent end to the war, making it unlikely that the movement will accept.
Hamas has signaled that it is still reviewing the proposal presented by Biden.
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