- Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirmed the group was looking at the proposal
- However, he has also said the group’s priority is the ‘full withdrawal’ of Israeli forces from Gaza, something that Israel is opposed to
Hamas said Tuesday it is studying a proposal thrashed out in Paris aimed at halting the war in Gaza between the militant group and Israel.
The proposed deal between Israel and Hamas could lead to a pause in fighting and see the release of dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh ‘confirms that the movement received the proposal which was circulated at the (Paris) meeting and that it (Hamas) is in the process of examining it and delivering its response,’ said a statement published by the group.
But Haniyeh, the group’s supreme political leader, also said the priority was the ‘full withdrawal’ of Israeli forces from Gaza, something Israel opposes, and that any agreement should lead to a long-term cease-fire.
He said Hamas’ leadership had been invited to Cairo to continue talks.
Israel had said that cease-fire talks held Sunday were constructive but that ‘significant gaps’ remained in any potential agreement.
Hamas said Tuesday it is studying a proposal thrashed out in Paris aimed at halting the war in Gaza between the militant group and Israel
The prime minister of Qatar – which has served as a key mediator along with Egypt and the United States – was more upbeat, saying American and Middle Eastern mediators had reached a framework proposal.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington on Monday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the mediators had made ‘good progress.’
In the latest efforts to broker a new truce, CIA chief William Burns met top Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Paris on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the talks ‘constructive’ but pointed to ‘significant gaps which the parties will continue to discuss’.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed hope for a deal, telling reporters that ‘very important, productive work has been done. And there is some real hope going forward.’
The confirmation that Hamas was examining the proposal came as deadly fighting and bombardment continued to rock Gaza on Tuesday.
Heavy Israeli strikes and urban combat across the besieged Gaza Strip killed 128 more people overnight, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
The epicentre of fighting has been the southern city of Khan Yunis – the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the October 7 attack.
Vast areas have been reduced to a muddy wasteland of bombed-out buildings.
Israel has claimed to have largely dismantled Hamas in Gaza.
It said aircraft destroyed a rocket launcher that fired a barrage of rockets at central Israel on Monday, the first rockets targeting the populated area in weeks.
Troops fighting in city blocks and tunnels have raided several military sites, Sinwar’s office and ‘a significant rocket manufacturing facility’, the Israeli military said.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed troops in the city had ‘eliminated over 2,000 terrorists above and below ground’.
Haniyeh’s comments came after Israeli undercover troops in the West Bank killed three alleged members of a Hamas ‘terrorist cell’ in a raid on a hospital.
![Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip (background) as a displaced Palestinian walks near the Palestinian-Egyptian border in Rafah camp, January 29](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/30/11/80627791-13022951-image-a-13_1706614675031.jpg)
Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip (background) as a displaced Palestinian walks near the Palestinian-Egyptian border in Rafah camp, January 29
The agents – some dressed as medical staff and carrying a wheelchair and baby carrier as props – shot dead three men at Ibn Sina Hospital in the northern city of Jenin, according to officials and hospital CCTV footage released by the ministry.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa named the three men as Muhammad Jalamnah, Muhammad Ayman Ghazawi and Basel Ayman Ghazawi.
The Israeli army charged that Jalamnah, allegedly ‘inspired’ by the October 7 attack, had ‘planned to carry out a terror attack in the immediate future and used the hospital as a hiding place and therefore was neutralised’.
The Palestinian health ministry stressed that hospitals enjoy special protection under international law and urged the United Nations to help end Israel’s ‘daily string of crimes… against our people and health centres’.
The deadliest ever Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Militants also seized 250 hostages, of whom Israel says around 132 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.
Israel’s relentless military offensive has killed at least 26,751 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Fears have grown that Israel and its ally the United States could face a widening Middle East conflict after months of violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Those fears were heightened after Washington vowed to respond to a drone attack Sunday that killed three US troops in a remote outpost in Jordan near the Syrian and Iraqi borders.
Tehran has denied any involvement in the attack.
Washington said the Jordan attack ‘requires a response’, but White House spokesman John Kirby also underlined that ‘we are not looking for a war with Iran’.
![Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirmed 'the movement received the proposal which was circulated at the (Paris) meeting and that it (Hamas) is in the process of examining it'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/30/11/80627753-13022951-image-a-14_1706614676967.jpg)
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirmed ‘the movement received the proposal which was circulated at the (Paris) meeting and that it (Hamas) is in the process of examining it’
The Israeli-Lebanese border has seen almost daily exchanges of fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, heightening fears of a wider conflict there.
Israel has said it is ready for any attacks but does not seek a wider war in the north.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late Monday that some units in Gaza were ‘moving up to the north and preparing for what’s to come’.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow…