News / Palestine

US, Israel seek temporary ceasefire in Gaza to ‘buy time’ to continue war: Hamas official

Thursday, 07 March 2024 7:03 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 07 March 2024 8:22 AM ]

Children stand amid the rubble of a mosque and makeshift shelters that were destroyed in Israeli strikes in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on March 2, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

A senior official of the Hamas resistance group says the US and Israel are pursuing a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in a bid to “buy time” to prolong their genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, made the remarks in an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen news channel, as Gaza truce negotiations, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, have failed to achieve a breakthrough.

"From the first day [of the Gaza ceasefire talks], it was clear that all the Americans and Israelis wanted was a temporary truce and they refused to cease hostilities permanently,” he said.

“Both the United States and Israel are maneuvering and trying to buy some time.”

The official also warned that Hamas will not continue aimless negotiations, adding that the resistance group seeks a written agreement and that it cannot settle for less.

Any information about the Israeli captives "comes with a price… If there are no clear answers, we cannot continue to go around in circles," he said.

Hamdan further said that the occupying regime actually wants to "catch its breath and worsen the humanitarian crisis" in the besieged Gaza.

Israel waged its brutal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime's intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 30,717 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 72,156 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the Palestinian people by blocking the passage of relief supplies into Gaza in what is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

Instead of halting the flow of its weapons to Gaza, the US has recently embarked on a public relations campaign and airdropped aid on the blockaded territory.

Biden admin. airdrops aid over Gaza while aiding and abetting Israeli genocide

For past five months, US has fully backed the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, supplying it with money and weapons. Now it is airdropping aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamdan said that the amount of the airdropped aid did not exceed two truckloads, noting that the US is a complicit in the regime's inhumane siege on Gaza.

“Those who want to come to Gaza to contribute to the liberation project are welcomed, while those who want to side with the Israeli occupation will be treated as an occupier," he said.

The Hamas official also warned that the more Israel escalates its aggression against Gaza, the more the resistance front will be pushed towards higher levels of the battle against the regime.

The course of developments in the current Gaza war shows that the Palestinian people will emerge victorious, he predicted.

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