Palestinian Hamas on Saturday lashed out at “American dictates” by rejecting a new draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where 15 members of the same family, including nine children, were killed in an Israeli strike, according to the Civil Defense.
After more than ten months of war, talks on a ceasefire in Gaza were held on Thursday and Friday in Doha between Israel and the mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – at the end of which a revised proposal for an agreement was presented by Washington, Israel’s main ally.
Returning from the talks, Israeli negotiators “expressed cautious optimism” to Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the prime minister’s office.
Hamas, however, rejected this revised proposal, denouncing “American dictates”, and is demanding the implementation of the plan announced at the end of May by American President Joe Biden.
The plan provides for a six-week truce in the first phase, accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages abducted on October 7, and in its second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Launched in response to an attack by the Islamist organization against Israel on October 7, the Israeli offensive continued during this new round of negotiations in which the Islamist movement refused to participate.
Israel announced on the night of Saturday to Sunday that it had killed in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, “two senior Hamas officials”, Ahmad Abu Ara, “responsible for the manufacture of explosives”, and Raafat Dawasi, a local “military official”.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, confirmed the deaths of the two men, stressing that they had been responsible for “planning and implementing several quality operations.”
On Saturday evening, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported the death of two Palestinians in the bombing of their car in Jenin.
For Washington, a ceasefire in Gaza would help avoid a regional conflagration after Iran and its allies threatened to retaliate for the assassination, attributed to Israel, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, and that of the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Shokr, killed the day before in an attack claimed by Israel near Beirut.
“Illusion”
A “proximate” ceasefire agreement is an “illusion”, said Hamas official Sami Abou Zohri, for whom the latest American proposal “suggests a huge step backwards”.
He was responding to Mr Biden, who said on Friday that a deal “has never been closer”.
Hamas accuses Israel of adding “new conditions”, including the “maintenance of troops” by Israeli forces on Gaza’s border with Egypt and “a right of veto” over which Palestinian prisoners could be exchanged for hostages.
With talks set to resume next week in Cairo, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to fly to Israel on Saturday.
The heads of British, French, German and Italian diplomacy, for their part, urged in a joint statement “all parties to engage in a positive and flexible manner in the process” of negotiation.
Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
In Tel Aviv, thousands of people gathered to demand a deal to bring home the hostages held in Gaza. “We all know there is a real possibility of a deal,” said Mor Korngold, the brother of one hostage.
“Indescribable scenes”
In the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip, at least 15 members of the Ajlah family, including three women and nine children, died in a strike in al-Zawayda, according to the Civil Defense.
“Three missiles hit the house directly,” Ahmed Abu al-Ghoul, who was helping other Palestinians evacuate bodies from the rubble, told AFP.
At the morgue, Omar al-Dreelmi, from the Ajlah family, spoke of “indescribable scenes of dismembered children’s bodies.”
Asked by AFP, the Israeli army said it had “hit a terrorist infrastructure in the center of the Gaza Strip”, affirming that it was “investigating” after having “received information” about civilians “killed in an adjacent structure”.
Israeli strikes also targeted residential towers in Khan Younis, according to witnesses.
According to the UN, thousands of Palestinians were forced to “leave in a hurry, without knowing where to go, amid death and destruction” after new Israeli evacuation orders for areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.
The army said it had eliminated several “terrorists” in Rafah and Khan Younis and announced the death of two soldiers, bringing to 332 the number of its soldiers killed since the launch of its ground offensive on October 27.
The attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 declared dead by the army.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza has left at least 40,074 dead, according to Hamas’s health ministry, which does not detail the number of civilians and fighters killed.
It has plunged the Palestinian territory into a humanitarian disaster, with the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people displaced.