Hamas said on Monday that it had informed Egypt and Qatar of its acceptance of their proposal for a ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the seven-month-old war.
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Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, made a phone call with the Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, and the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, informing them that “Hamas agreed to their proposal for a ceasefire,” according to a statement published on Twitter. . The Palestinian movement’s website, which does not provide details about the content of the offer.
Unresponsible from Hamas inquiring to the AFP sous le couvert de l'anonymat that “the ball is arranged in the camp” in Israel that the choice “entre accepter l'accord de cessez-le-feu, soit y faire.” impediment”.
In Rafah, a town located on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, where the army urged residents of some neighborhoods on Monday morning to leave the city in preparation for an Israeli military operation, Hamas' announcement was met with scenes of jubilation and gunfire in Rafah. air.
People rejoice and thank God, as an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene reported, “and people cry with joy and there are gunshots in the air in celebration.”
One resident, Nour Al-Farra (56 years old), told AFP that the announcement of the ceasefire “filled her with joy.” “I knelt down to thank God, especially since we had been in a state of anxiety since this morning, packing our bags to prepare to leave. But we never stopped praying.
Another Hamas official interviewed by AFP confirmed that Hamas' announcement “does not mean that the ceasefire is in effect, as the Israeli side has not announced its position.”
Egyptian-Qatari-American mediation has been trying for several months to reach a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which is supposed to include stopping the fighting and releasing Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. He was kidnapped during Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, which sparked the war.
The round of indirect negotiations ended on Sunday in Cairo without any progress. Hamas demanded that the truce agreement stipulate an end to the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, which Israel rejects and says it is determined to eliminate Hamas.
The October 7 attack killed more than 1,170 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse report based on official Israeli data. During the attack, more than 250 people were kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, 35 of whom died, according to the army.
Since October 7, the Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip has left more than 34,700 people dead, most of them civilians, according to the latest data issued by the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza government.
