Report: Hamas flatly rejected a new US draft for a hostage-ceasefire deal; Israel expressed reservations

Determinedly seeking a hostage-ceasefire deal, Biden Administration officials in the past few days sent the draft text of a new proposal to Israel and, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, to Hamas, Channel 12 news reported earlier tonight, citing an Israeli and an American source.

Israel expressed reservations, including over clauses relating to the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border and the Netzarim Corridor that runs between northern and southern Gaza, the report says.

Hamas, however, flatly rejected the draft text, and said it would not accept any deal that differs from the proposal presented by US President Joe Biden at the end of May.

Biden’s presentation was, in fact, based on an Israeli proposal, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that, in its response to that proposal, Hamas sought to make 29 changes. For his part, Netanyahu has in recent months repeatedly invoked a series of nonnegotiable conditions for a deal that are not specified in the May proposal.

Channel 12’s report suggests that Hamas’s firmly negative response to the latest US ideas may have something to do with White House National Security spokesman John Kirby’s comments earlier Sunday blaming Hamas for the stalling of talks on a deal.