In response to Hamas, PM accuses terror group of ‘preventing an agreement’

By Lazar Berman

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29 July 2024, 8:22 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

Illustrative: Families of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip attend a joint meeting of the State Control Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on July 29, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/ Flash90)

After Hamas accused Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday of preventing a ceasefire in Gaza by adding new conditions and demands to a US-backed truce proposal, the Prime Minister’s Office puts the blame squarely on Hamas.

“Hamas’s leadership is preventing an agreement,” says the PMO in a statement.

“Israel did not change nor did it add any conditions to the proposal,” it continues. “Quite the opposite, up to this point Hamas is the one that demanded 29 changes and did not respond to the original proposal.”

The PMO stresses that Israel continues to stand by the conditions Netanyahu laid out earlier this month — “maximizing the number of living hostages [released], Israeli control over the Philadelphi Route, and the prevention of terrorists and weapons moving to the northern Gaza Strip.”

“It is clear from what the mediators conveyed that Netanyahu has returned to his strategy of procrastination, evasion, and avoiding reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said in a statement earlier today.

The terror group accused Netanyahu of retreating from a proposal previously presented by mediators, which it said had already been based on an “Israeli paper.”