Hamas said to reject Israeli proposal that it disarm as part of 6-week ceasefire

Hamas has turned down an Israeli offer for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip under which the terror group would have been required to disarm, according to a Tuesday report.

According to the BBC, Israel is demanding the release of half of the remaining living hostages in exchange for a six-week truce and Hamas’s disarmament.

“The Israeli proposal relayed to the movement through Egypt explicitly called for the disarmament of Hamas without any Israeli commitment to end the war or withdraw from Gaza. Hamas therefore rejected the offer in its entirety,” an official in the terror group was quoted as saying.

Israel has repeatedly demanded that Hamas relinquish civilian and security control of Gaza, while the terror group insists that any ceasefire deal must end the war and achieve a full Israeli pull-out from the enclave.

Hamas has long rejected talk of disarmament, though its officials have expressed willingness to give up control of the Strip to a transitional body of independent technocrats, such as the one envisioned in the Egyptian plan for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza that was unveiled last month.

Responding to recent reports of progress in ceasefire talks, an official from one of the Arab mediating countries told The Times of Israel on Monday that no breakthrough was currently on the horizon and that “the same elements that have prevented a deal until now are still in place.”

“Hamas is not going to agree to a complete surrender, but that is still what Israel is demanding,” the Arab official said, echoing an earlier statement from senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri.

“Handing over the resistance’s weapons is a million red lines and is not subject to consideration, let alone discussion,” Abu Zuhri said.

However, he insisted that Hamas is “ready to hand over the hostages in one batch” in exchange for the end of the war and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza, confirming what a senior Hamas official told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

Israel and Hamas signed onto a phased ceasefire deal in January that fell apart after its first stage. Hamas wanted to transition to the second phase as stipulated in the agreement, but Israel sought to rework the terms to free additional hostages without committing to a permanent end to the war, as envisioned in the second phase. After Hamas refused, Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long refused to end the war before Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled. He is backed by many of his hardline coalition partners who have threatened to collapse his government if he agrees to end the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

However, successive polls have indicated that the government is out of step with the majority of Israelis who back ending the war started by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in exchange for the release of all 59 remaining hostages — 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Hamas: We lost contact with Edan Alexander’s handlers

Hamas, meanwhile, claimed on Tuesday to have lost contact with the terrorists holding Israeli-American hostage soldier Edan Alexander in Gaza.

“We announce that we have lost contact with the team guarding soldier Edan Alexander following a direct Israeli bombardment targeting their location. We are still trying to reach them,” said Hudhaifa Kahlout — known by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida — the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

“It seems that the occupation army is deliberately trying to kill him and hence relieve themselves from the pressure caused by the dual-citizen prisoners in order to continue its genocide against our people,” Abu Obeida said.

The IDF has said that it does not carry out strikes in areas where it suspects hostages may be held by Hamas. Military officials have repeatedly said that every strike and ground operation in Gaza is carefully planned out not to endanger Israeli hostages. However, the IDF has admitted in the past that the deaths of some hostages may have been linked to nearby airstrikes.

Alexander, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was stationed near the Gaza Strip on the morning of October 7, when he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists.

As the last remaining US citizen held hostage in Gaza, Alexander has been a key focus of the US-mediated ceasefire negotiations, with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff saying last month that gaining his release was a “top priority for us.”

Last month, Hamas claimed it was willing to release Alexander along with the bodies of four other dual US-Israeli citizens, an offer that Israel slammed as “manipulation and psychological warfare” and said it would not agree to a deal that only saw Americans freed.

Hamas has published two propaganda videos of Alexander, the latest on Saturday, in which the captive, visibly gaunt, said that he heard the terror group was ready to release him three weeks ago and that the government and Netanyahu “refused and left me here.” The statement was almost certainly dictated by his captors.

PM visits Gaza, vows Hamas will suffer ‘more and more blows’

On Tuesday, Netanyahu visited soldiers stationed in the northern Gaza Strip, where he told them that the terror group will suffer “more and more blows” by the IDF.

“We insist that it release our hostages, and we insist on achieving all our war aims,” Netanyahu told assembled soldiers as drones flew overhead.

Holding a printout of a post by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu said that he was again calling for Israel’s destruction.

“He is doing this during negotiations with the Americans,” Netanyahu said, referring to the ongoing Iran-US talks over Tehran’s nuclear program, a process of which Israel is extremely wary.

Standing alongside Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel will never allow Hamas “to threaten our communities and our citizens, and therefore, the operation that is currently taking place is pressuring Hamas to first release the hostages.”

“The more it persists in its refusal,” Katz continued, “the more we will intensify the blows it will suffer until it is defeated and all the hostages are returned.”

The two were joined by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and other senior aides.

The war in Gaza started on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 59 hostages. Twenty-four of the hostages are believed to be alive, while 35 have been confirmed dead by the IDF. Among the latter is the body of a soldier killed in 2014.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel insists it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 410.