Hamas and Israel traded accusations on Wednesday over delays in finalising a ceasefire and hostage release agreement for Gaza, despite continued efforts by mediators to broker a deal in the latest round of negotiations.<\/p>\n
Indirect talks between the two warring parties, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have taken place in Doha in recent days, rekindling hope for a truce that has proven elusive.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, however, both sides accused the other of throwing up roadblocks to a deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations are continuing in Doha under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt in a serious manner\u2026 but the occupation has set new conditions concerning withdrawal (of troops), the ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of displaced people, which has delayed reaching an agreement,\u201d Hamas said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It did not elaborate on the conditions imposed by Israel.<\/p>\n
Israel swiftly refuted the accusations, saying it was the Palestinian militant group that was creating \u201cnew obstacles\u201d to an agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe terrorist organisation Hamas is once again lying, reneging on understandings already reached, and continuing to create new obstacles in the negotiations,\u201d said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
The latest tit-for-tat accusations came after Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament on Monday that there had been \u201csome progress\u201d in the talks. On Tuesday, his office said Israeli representatives had returned from Qatar after \u201csignificant negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week, Hamas and two other Palestinian militant groups \u2014 Islamic Jihad and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine \u2014 said in a rare joint statement that a ceasefire agreement was \u201ccloser than ever\u201d, provided Israel did not impose new conditions.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Bring them back, Netanyahu\u2019 \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n On Wednesday, some relatives of hostages still being held in Gaza urged Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring their loved ones home.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to bring them back, Netanyahu. It\u2019s up to you\u2026 It\u2019s about time, don\u2019t wait,\u201d said Sharon Sharabi, whose two brothers were abducted during the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, reading out a statement at Tel Aviv\u2019s Hostages Square.<\/p>\n The Israeli military has confirmed that one of the two abducted brothers died in captivity.<\/p>\n Efforts to strike a truce and hostage release deal have repeatedly failed over key stumbling blocks.<\/p>\n Despite numerous rounds of indirect talks, Israel and Hamas have agreed just one truce in the more than 14 months of war, which lasted for a week at the end of 2023.<\/p>\n That truce facilitated the release of 80 Israelis held by militants in Gaza in exchange for 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.<\/p>\n Another 25 hostages, mostly Thai farm workers, were also released from captivity.<\/p>\n Negotiations have faced multiple challenges since then, with the primary point of disagreement being the establishment of a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.<\/p>\n Another unresolved issue is the governance of post-war Gaza, which remains highly contentious, including within the Palestinian leadership.<\/p>\n Israel has said repeatedly that it will not allow Hamas to run the territory ever again.<\/p>\n In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Netanyahu said: \u201cI\u2019m not going to agree to end the war before we remove Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n He added Israel is \u201cnot going to leave them in power in Gaza, 30 miles from Tel Aviv. It\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Netanyahu has also repeatedly stated that he does not want to withdraw Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land cleared and controlled by Israel along Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt.<\/p>\n The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas\u2019s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, during which militants seized 251 hostages.<\/p>\n Ninety-six of them are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.<\/p>\n The attack resulted in 1,208 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 45,361 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory\u2019s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.<\/p>\n The post Hamas, Israel trade blame over delay in finalising Gaza truce deal<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hamas and Israel traded accusations on Wednesday over delays in finalising a ceasefire and hostage release agreement for Gaza, despite continued efforts by mediators to broker a deal in the latest round of negotiations. Indirect talks between the two warring parties, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have taken place in Doha in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}