Hamas says delegation heading to Cairo for ceasefire talks
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has said its delegation will travel to the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Saturday to resume ceasefire talks with a "positive spirit" in the latest effort to halt almost seven months of Israel’s genocidal war against the people in Gaza.
"We emphasize the positive spirit with which the Hamas leadership dealt with the ceasefire proposal it recently received, and we are going to Cairo in the same spirit to reach an agreement," Hamas posted on its website on Friday.
"We in Hamas and the Palestinian resistance forces are determined to achieve an agreement that fulfills our people's demands for a complete cessation of the aggression, the withdrawal of the occupation forces, the return of the displaced, relief and reconstruction, and a serious exchange deal," the statement said.
Earlier in the day, a senior Hamas official said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was stonewalling the truce deal between the Gaza Strip-based resistance movement and the Tel Aviv regime.
"Netanyahu was the obstructionist of all previous rounds of dialog... and it is clear that he still is," Hossam Badran, member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, told AFP by telephone on Friday.
Bardan cited the Israeli premier’s insistence on carrying out a ground invasion against the southern Gaza city of Rafah as a key stumbling block in negotiations aimed at potential arrival at a deal.
While Hamas has demanded a lasting ceasefire, Netanyahu has vowed to launch an offensive in the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.
Netanyahu has insisted he will send ground troops into Rafah, despite strong concerns voiced by UN agencies and ally Washington for the safety of the civilians inside the city.
Around 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge in the city from the ravages of the war that has so far killed at least 34,622 Palestinians.
Badran said Netanyahu's resolve to attack Rafah was calculated to "thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement."
The Israeli official has said the regime would go ahead with invading the city “with or without” a truce deal.
The Israeli offensive has left 85 percent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 percent of the territory’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations.
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