JERUSALEM: Hopes rose on Monday (Apr 29) for a long-sought-after truce and hostage release deal after almost seven months of war in Gaza between Palestinian Hamas militants and Israel.
Washington’s top diplomat said he was “hopeful” Hamas would accept the offer, which his British counterpart said could see the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
After meeting in Cairo, the Hamas delegation left Egypt and returned to Qatar “to discuss the ideas and the proposal … and we are keen to respond as quickly as possible”, a Hamas source close to the talks told AFP on condition of anonymity.
According to Egyptian sources quoted by Al-Qahera News, a site also linked to Egyptian intelligence services, the Hamas delegation will “return with a written response to the truce proposal”.
For months, meditators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to broker a new agreement between the combatants. A one-week truce in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Diplomacy in the past few days appeared to suggest a new push to halt the fighting.
The war has brought Gaza to the brink of famine, United Nations and humanitarian aid groups say, while reducing much of the territory to rubble and raising fears of a wider regional conflict.
Salvaging belongings from the remains of a house in Gaza City, a bandage on his head, Ibrahim Juzar said a strike wounded his three girls and wife.
“My wife’s chest has been fractured” and she has internal bleeding, he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh that the proposal before Hamas is “extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel”.
He urged the Palestinian Militant group to “decide quickly”, saying: “I’m hopeful that they will make the right decision.”
