Controversy over talks during Hamas protests strike – World

• Chief of Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades survives Israeli attack
• Netanyahu says he will attack Hamas leadership
• Death toll from conflict approaches 38,600

CAIRO: Ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip were thrown into uncertainty on Sunday as Hamas issued mixed statements following an Israeli attack on Hamas’s top commander: One official said the Palestinian group was withdrawing from the negotiations, while another claimed the opposite.

Israel said the deadly attacks over the weekend were aimed at Mohammed Deif, but a representative of the Palestinian group said the Hamas military chief was “fine and under direct supervision” despite the bombing of a Gaza refugee camp on Saturday. Israel said the attack was an attempt to kill Deif.

Deif heads the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades and announced in an audio message that Hamas’ unprecedented attack would begin on October 7, 2023.

The Hamas official said the group was withdrawing from ceasefire negotiations due to Israeli “massacres” and repeated delays.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday’s attack on Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safety zone” on the Mediterranean coast, killed at least 92 people, more than half of them women and children, and injured 300.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief in Qatar, told international mediators that “the decision to break off negotiations was due to the lack of seriousness of the (Israeli) occupation, its continued policy of delay and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres of unarmed civilians,” the official said.

But Hamas is “ready to resume negotiations” if the Israeli government “shows that it is serious about working out a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange,” the official quoted Haniyeh as saying.

For months, talks brokered by Qatar and Egypt and supported by the United States attempted to end the war, but failed.

Two Egyptian security sources said on Saturday at ceasefire talks in Doha and Cairo that the negotiations had broken off after three days of intensive talks.

Meanwhile, another senior Hamas official said on Sunday that the group had not withdrawn from ceasefire talks.

However, Izzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, accused Israel of thwarting efforts by Arab mediators and the United States to achieve a ceasefire by increasing attacks on the enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to convene his inner circle of ministers later on Sunday to discuss the talks.

Rafa Salama, commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, was killed in Saturday’s attack on Deif, the Israeli military said on Sunday.

A senior Hamas official denied that Deif had been killed and said the Israeli claims were intended only to justify the attack.

On Sunday, Israeli forces continued to shell several areas of the coastal enclave from the air and from the ground. The enclave is home to 2.3 million people, most of whom have been displaced by the war.

Fifteen Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a UN-run school in the Nuseirat camp, one of eight long-standing refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Hamas media and health officials said.

At least 38,584 Palestinians have been killed and 88,881 others injured in the Israeli military offensive against Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said on Sunday. The death toll has risen by 141 since the previous day.

Netanyahu said it was still unclear whether Deif and another Hamas commander had been killed and vowed to continue targeting the Hamas leadership, saying more military pressure on the group would increase the chances of a prisoner exchange. “Either way, we will reach the entire Hamas leadership,” Netanyahu said at a news conference.

Published in Dawn, July 15, 2024