Hamas and Israel staked out their positions Wednesday ahead of expected talks on a Washington-backed ceasefire proposal, with the militant group suggesting it was open to an agreement while the Israeli prime minister vowed “there will be no Hamas” in post-conflict Gaza.
Both stopped short of accepting the proposal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Hamas insisted on its longstanding position that any deal bring an end to the conflict in Gaza.
Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen. The U.S. leader has been increasing pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas to broker a ceasefire, and hostage agreement and bring about an end to the conflict.
Trump said the 60-day period would be used to work toward ending the conflict — something Israel says it won’t accept until Hamas is defeated. He said that a deal might come together as soon as next week.
But Hamas’ response, which emphasized its demand that the conflict end, raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialize into an actual pause in fighting.
Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said that the militant group was “ready and serious regarding reaching an agreement.” He said Hamas was “ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war.”
A Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the proposal, according to an Egyptian official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the talks with the media.
Disagreement on how the conflict should end
Throughout the nearly 21-month-long conflict, ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over whether the conflict should end as part of any deal.
Hamas said in a brief statement Wednesday that it had received a proposal from the mediators and is holding talks with them to “bridge gaps” to return to the negotiating table to try to reach a ceasefire agreement.
Hamas has said that it’s willing to free the remaining 50 hostages, less than half of whom are said to be alive, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the conflict.
Israel says it will only agree to end the conflict if Hamas surrenders, disarms and exiles itself, something the group refuses to do.
“I am announcing to you — there will be no Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a speech Wednesday.
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An Israeli official said that the latest proposal calls for a 60-day deal that would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a surge in humanitarian aid to the territory. The mediators and the U.S. would provide assurances about talks to end the conflict, but Israel isn’t committing to that as part of the latest proposal, the official said.
The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the details of the proposed deal with the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It wasn’t clear how many hostages would be freed as part of the agreement, but previous proposals have called for the release of about 10.
Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
“I’m holding my hands and praying that this will come about,” said Idit Ohel, mother of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel. “I hope the world will help this happen, will put pressure on whoever they need to, so the war will stop and the hostages will return.”
On Monday, Trump is set to host Netanyahu at the White House, days after Ron Dermer, a senior Netanyahu adviser, held discussions with top U.S. officials about Gaza, Iran and other matters.
Trump issues another warning
On Tuesday, Trump wrote on social media that Israel had “agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War.”
“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he said.
Trump’s warning may find a skeptical audience with Hamas. Even before the expiration of the conflict’s longest ceasefire in March, Trump has repeatedly issued dramatic ultimatums to pressure Hamas to agree to longer pauses in the fighting that would see the release of more hostages and a return of more aid for Gaza’s civilians.
Still, Trump views the current moment as a potential turning point in the brutal conflict that has left more than 57,000 dead in the Palestinian territory.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said the death toll passed the 57,000 mark Tuesday into Wednesday, after hospitals received 142 bodies overnight. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count, but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.
Since dawn Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed a total of 40 people across the Gaza Strip, the ministry said. Hospital officials said four children and seven women were among the dead.
The Israeli military, which blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas, was looking into the reports.
The conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
The war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting. More than 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, pushing hundreds of thousands of people toward hunger.
The director of the Indonesian Hospital, Dr. Marwan Sultan, was killed in an apartment in an Israeli strike west of Gaza City, a hospital statement said. The hospital is the Palestinian enclave’s largest medical facility north of Gaza City and has been a critical lifeline since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The hospital was surrounded by Israeli troops last month, and evacuated alongside the other two primary hospitals in northern Gaza.
The bodies of Sultan, his wife, daughter and son-in-law, arrived at Shifa Hospital torn into pieces, according to Issam Nabhan, head of the nursing department at the Indonesian Hospital.
“Gaza lost a great man and doctor,” Nabhan said. “He never left the hospital one moment since the conflict began and urged us to stay and provide humanitarian assistance. We don’t know what he did to deserve getting killed.”
–Bassem Mroue reported from Beirut. Moshe Edri in Tel Aviv, Israel, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, and Josef Federman in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.
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