Al Jazeera – Aug 20, 2024

Hamas has said a ceasefire deal must result in a permanent end to Israel’s war on Gaza, accusing the United States of “merely buying time for Israel to continue its genocide” by proposing an amended accord.

As the Palestinian group revealed details of Israel’s new conditions, it urged the world to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the deal proposed by US President Joe Biden on May 31 and backed by the United Nations Security Council on June 11.

“The Israelis have retreated from issues included in Biden’s proposal. Netanyahu’s talk about agreeing to an updated proposal indicates that the US administration has failed to convince him to accept the previous agreement,” Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera on Monday.

On Tuesday, Biden said Hamas was “backing away” from the deal agreed to by Israel.

“It’s still in play, but you can’t predict,” he said while leaving the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “Israel says they can work it out … Hamas is now backing away.”

‘Bridging proposal’

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said “time is of the essence” to secure a Gaza truce as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with a plea for a deal.

The US secretary of state, on his ninth regional visit since the 10-month-old Gaza war began, made a brief stop in Qatar after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi earlier in the day.

Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the US to broker a ceasefire in Gaza.

Egypt and Qatar will do everything possible to get Hamas on board with the so-called “bridging proposal”. The proposal aims to bridge unresolved disputes between Israel and Hamas in order to scale down violence in Gaza.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday night at the tarmac of Doha airport, Blinken said once Hamas agrees to the proposal presented by Washington to tackle disagreements blocking a ceasefire deal, they would also have to get agreement on the implementation details.

Blinken said the US continues to oppose any “long-term” occupation of Gaza by Israeli forces and that talks have been “very clear on the schedule and location” of Israeli military withdrawals from Gaza.

“This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” he told reporters at the Doha airport.

Hamas has called Biden’s earlier comments “misleading”, stressing that the group is eager to reach a deal but the new provisions contradict the earlier framework.

By shifting the terms, the US is showing “blind bias” towards Israel and acquiescing to its demands, Hamas said, enabling it to “commit more crimes against defenceless civilians, in pursuit of the goals of exterminating and displacing our people”.

Hamas said the new proposal meets Netanyahu’s conditions, including his refusal of a ceasefire and a complete troop withdrawal from Gaza, and his insistence on keeping control of the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the north and the south of the enclave, the Rafah border crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor that borders Egypt.

In Egypt, el-Sisi warned Blinken f the risk of Israel’s war on Gaza expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine” and emphasised that “the time has come to end the ongoing war”, according to a statement issued by the Egyptian presidency.

“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region,” el-Sisi said, according to the statement.

Hussein Haridy, Egypt’s former assistant foreign minister, told Al Jazeera before the two met that Egypt opposes the Israeli aim of maintaining control over the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor.

“Egypt has always rejected the permanent Israeli military presence in the Philadelphi Corridor as well as Israeli control over Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing,” Haridy said. “This remains the Egyptian position.”

Meanwhile, at least 20 Palestinians were killed in Gaza as the Israeli military struck a school in western Gaza City and a busy market in Deir el-Balah, according to civil defence authorities in the enclave.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the school-turned-shelter “served as a last resort” for displaced Palestinians, and civil defence said it was housing 700 people.

At least 40,173 people have been killed and 92,857 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.

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