• Wednesday, 21 August 2024

Hamas slams US for favouring Israeli conditions in Gaza truce talks

Hamas slams US for favouring Israeli conditions in Gaza truce talks

Tel Aviv/Gaza/Beirut, 20 August 2024 (dpa/MIA) - The Palestinian extremist group Hamas has accused the United States of yielding to Israeli conditions in the negotiations for a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict with the latest bridging proposal.

The comments come as US Secretary State Antony Blinken's shuttle diplomacy to secure a ceasefire continued in Egypt on Tuesday.

Washington is tolerating new demands from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas said in a statement sent via the messaging service WhatsApp.

The current proposal does not correspond to the draft that was agreed upon with the mediators at the beginning of July and was based on the proposal made by US President Joe Biden in May, Hamas said.

Hamas will not negotiate new conditions, their spokesman Osama Hamdan told dpa.

According to reports, the dispute involves new conditions regarding the release of Palestinian prisoners who are to be freed in exchange for people abducted from Israel.

"We in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) followed with great astonishment and disapproval the statements issued by US President Joe Biden, in which he claimed that the movement is backing away from the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, hours after his Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken called on the movement to accept the latest proposal," Hamas said.

"Biden and Blinken's statements are misleading claims and do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a cessation of aggression," Hamas said.

Blinken said on Monday night that Israel has accepted a US-supported proposal to bridge differences between Israel and Hamas. Hamas, however, has not yet agreed to it.