 "A Palestinian looks on at the site of Thursday's Israeli strike that damaged and destroyed residential buildings, at Shati (Beach) refugee camp, in Gaza City. Reuters")
Hamas has announced that it is ready to enter talks to implement the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire after it responded “positively” to the truce deal that was proposed by Washington earlier this week.
“The movement has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterised by a positive spirit. Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.
Israeli media have confirmed that the government has received Hamas’s response and is currently examining it.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has said that there “could be a Gaza deal” next week and that he was optimistic, although the situation could change.
In response to reports that Hamas had responded positively to proposed truce talks, he said: “That’s good. They haven’t briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.”
The announcement came after it held consultations with other Palestinian factions and before a visit on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where Trump is pushing for an end to the war, now in its 21st month.
Trump declared on Monday (June 30) that Israel had accepted a 60-day ceasefire deal and urged Hamas to do the same. The Palestinian group took the week to study the terms of the agreement.
Impact Shorts
View AllMeanwhile, Hamas’s ally Islamic Jihad has said that while it supports negotiations, Israel should “guarantee” that there will be “no attacks” once hostages held in Gaza are freed.
What would the truce entail?
A Palestinian source familiar with the mediated negotiations told AFP that “there are no fundamental changes in the new proposal” under discussion compared to previous terms presented by the United States.
The source said that the new proposal “includes a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees”.
Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27, the Israeli military says, are dead.
Netanyahu vows to bring hostages home
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has vowed to bring home all the hostages still held by Hamas in war-stricken Gaza.
“I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them,” Netanyahu told inhabitants of the Nir Oz kibbutz , the community that saw the most hostages seized in the 2023 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.
“We will bring them all back,” he added, in filmed comments released by his office.
With inputs from agencies