Hamas Rejects New Gaza Truce Terms as Biden Claims Deal Nearing

Hamas announced its rejection of “new conditions” presented in a Gaza ceasefire proposal during two days of U.S.-led talks in Qatar.

Diplomatic efforts have yet to alleviate the suffering caused by more than 10 months of conflict, though U.S. President Joe Biden claimed after the latest round of negotiations that “we are closer than we have ever been.” Biden is dispatching U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push the proposal forward, according to the State Department.

Mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and the United States have been working to finalize a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, which he said was proposed by Israel. In a joint statement, the mediators said they had presented a proposal to both sides that “bridges remaining gaps” and would continue working in the coming days to iron out details on humanitarian provisions and a hostage-prisoner exchange.

Talks are scheduled to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week” in hopes of securing a quick deal.

Hamas, which did not participate in the Doha talks, swiftly opposed what it referred to as “new conditions” from Israel in the latest proposal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged mediators to “pressure” Hamas into accepting Biden’s framework.

As threats from Iran and its allies to attack Israel have grown, the urgency for a Gaza ceasefire deal has intensified, with mediators hoping to prevent a wider regional conflict.

Biden cautioned, “No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” adding, “There’s just a couple more issues, I think we’ve got a shot.”

An informed source told AFP that Hamas objected to conditions regarding the presence of Israeli troops on Gaza’s border with Egypt and the terms related to the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi blamed Netanyahu for obstructing a deal and urged all parties who wish to see the process through to completion to apply pressure.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne held talks in Israel on Friday to advocate for the agreement. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told the visiting diplomats he expects support if Iran retaliates for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Sejourne responded that discussing responses to any attack would be “inappropriate” while diplomatic efforts to prevent such actions are ongoing.

A senior U.S. official warned that Iran would face “cataclysmic” consequences if it strikes Israel. Meanwhile, a deadly attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Thursday drew international condemnation and calls for sanctions against Israeli government officials over the rise in settler violence against Palestinians since the Gaza war began.

The Israeli military reported that “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked,” entered the village of Jit, setting vehicles and structures on fire and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. A Palestinian man was shot dead during the incident.

The Palestinian foreign ministry based in the West Bank described the attack as “organized state terrorism.” The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he would propose sanctions against Israeli government “enablers” of settler violence.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a proponent of West Bank settlements, joined other Israeli leaders in condemning the attack by “criminals.”

Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Militants also captured 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. More than 100 hostages were freed during a one-week truce in November.

On Thursday, the death toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign surpassed 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian and militant casualties.

The war has devastated Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure, leading to repeated warnings from the World Health Organization about the risk of preventable diseases. On Friday, the Palestinian health ministry reported that an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza was diagnosed with polio, the first case in 25 years, according to the WHO.

The announcement came just hours after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day pauses in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against type 2 poliovirus, which was first detected in Gaza’s wastewater in June.

As ceasefire talks continued, thousands of civilians were once again forced to move within Gaza after the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders ahead of imminent military action. The UN estimated that the orders affected more than 170,000 people, pushing them into the dwindling areas declared as humanitarian safe zones.

The area designated for relocation represents only 11 percent of Gaza, according to the UN. “During each round of negotiations, they apply pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” said Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir al-Balah.