MONITORING (SW) – Gaza conflict mediators have urged Israel and Hamas to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal outlined by United States President Joe Biden that they said would bring immediate relief to people in Gaza and to the hostages and their families.
Israel has said there will be no formal end to the war as long as Hamas retains power, raising questions of timing and interpretation over the truce offer, which has been provisionally welcomed by the Palestinian faction.
On Friday, Biden said that Israel had proposed a deal involving an initial six-week ceasefire with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while “a permanent end to hostilities” is negotiated through mediators.
The U.S., Egypt and Qatar have been seeking for months to mediate an end to the war, but a deal has proven elusive.
The proposal, Biden said, also “creates a better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power”. He did not elaborate on how that might be achieved. The Iranian-backed Islamist group has given no indication it might step aside or disarm voluntarily.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter”.
Two members of his coalition also threatened to withdraw from the government if he went ahead with a deal that ended the war without destroying Hamas.
Hamas said on Friday it was ready to engage “positively and in a constructive manner”. But senior official Mahmoud Mardawi told Qatari television it had not yet received details of the proposal.
“No agreement can be reached before the demand for the withdrawal of the occupation army and a ceasefire is met,” he said. Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction.
Israel has been willing only to suspend the war in exchange for hostages, saying it would resume the campaign to eliminate the Hamas threat. Hamas wants any deal to entail concrete Israeli moves to end the war, such as a full troop withdrawal.
A senior Biden administration official, asked about a potential rift in the U.S. and Israeli viewpoints on the future of Hamas, suggested this may be open to interpretation and would come down to future Egyptian and Qatari sway over the movement.
“I have no doubt that the deal will be characterized by Israel and be characterized by Hamas,” the official told reporters.
“And I think the arrangements and some of the day-after planning, you know, helps ensure that — that Hamas’s military capacity to regenerate in a way that can threaten Israel would be very much foreclosed under this arrangement and, I think the president said in his speech, ensuring that Hamas cannot rearm.”
The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led Palestinian fighters rampaged into southern Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins, led to widespread starvation, and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, who say most of the dead are civilians. More than 290 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Gaza invasion.
