Hamas wants written guarantees Israel won’t resume Gaza war after first hostages are released

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas' political office in Lebanon, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, July 12, 2024.  (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas' political office in Lebanon, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Hamas official says that the Palestinian terror group is still insisting on written guarantees from mediators in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations that Israel will not resume the war after the first group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released.

While the two sides have agreed on a general framework for a deal, the main sticking point remains that Hamas wants it to result in a permanent ceasefire, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that any agreement “must allow Israel to return to fighting until all the objectives of the war are achieved.”

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’s political office in Lebanon, tells The Associated Press in an interview that Hamas has been “flexible” on some points but continues to insist that “negotiations should continue for a permanent ceasefire until a permanent ceasefire is reached,” as opposed to the wording in the current proposal, under which the ceasefire should continue as long as negotiations continue.

“Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression” at any time, he says. “We want something in writing to ensure that negotiations continue … in order to reach a permanent ceasefire.”

He denies reports that the group’s leadership inside Gaza had pressured political leaders outside to accept the deal on the table due to the military pressure it is facing, saying that the “military situation is very solid for the resistance (Hamas) and is better than the early days of the war.”

Abdul-Hadi says that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the ruling party in Gaza after the war but wants to see a Palestinian government of technocrats. However, he says the form that future governance in the enclave should take is “a Palestinian matter that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people” and is not on the table in the current negotiations.

“We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase,” he says. “We want to have a partnership and national consensus.”

Abdul-Hadi says a meeting between Hamas and its main rival, Fatah, is expected to take place in China later this month and that “we hope that this meeting will result in a national consensus.”

The meeting was previously scheduled to take place last month but was postponed, with the two sides trading blame for the delay.

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