Hamas accepts Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal
Hamas says it has accepted a ceasefire proposal brokered by Egypt and Qatar to pause seven months of war with Israel.
On Monday a statement from Hamas's leader Ismail Haniyeh said he had informed Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister over the phone he accepted their proposal.
The two Middle Eastern nations have been mediating months of talks between Israel and Hamas.
There has been no immediate comment from Israel and details of the ceasefire agreement have not been released.
It is not clear whether the deal will meet Hamas’ key demand of bringing about an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal.
The announcement comes hours after Israel ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to begin evacuating.
The order signalled Israel's long-promised invasion of the south where more than a million people were seeking refuge.
Qatar had warned any invasion could damage any ceasefire talks.
Leaflets featuring maps of where refugees were advised to go were airdropped over Gaza by Israeli aircraft.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said that the area demarcated for refugees to flee to is not suitable to meet the basic needs of people there.
Director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, Scott Anderson, described the coastal, western side of Gaza as a “sandy area” with “a lot of beach".
“I know they expanded the area recently, but a lot of that's in Khan Younis which we're still trying to recover from an operation that happened there,” he told CNN.
Israel has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said they need to carry out a ground invasion to defeat the Islamic militant group.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi.
He said Israel was preparing a “limited scope operation” and would not say whether this was the beginning of a broader invasion of the city.
Last October Israel did not formally announce the launch of a ground invasion that continued into the current conflict.
The move comes a day after Hamas militants carried out a deadly rocket attack from the area that killed three Israeli soldiers.
Shoshani said Israel published a map of the evacuation area, and that orders were being issued through leaflets dropped from the sky, text messages and radio broadcasts.
He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.
Israel's plan to invade Rafah has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
About 1.4 million Palestinians - more than half of Gaza’s population - are in the town and its surroundings.
Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s attacks on Hamas and now face another move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault.
The people in Gaza live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing UN shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
The United States, Israel's closest ally, has repeatedly urged Israel not to carry out the invasion, saying it does not have a credible plan to protect civilians.
But even as the US, Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated last week that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group.
On Sunday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Hamas wasn’t serious about a deal and warned of “a powerful operation in the very near future in Rafah."
His comments came after Hamas attacked Israel’s main crossing point for delivering assistance on Sunday, killing three soldiers.
Shoshani would not say whether the upcoming Rafah operation is a response to Sunday's killing.
He said the incident would have no effect on the amounts of badly needed aid entering Gaza because other crossing points remain operational.
He wouldn't comment, however, on US warnings not to invade and wasn't clear on whether the evacuation was coordinated with Egypt.
Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border, which is supposed to be demilitarised, or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.
Statistics: Posted by EnterpriseSovereign — 2024-05-06 02:21pm