Hamas reply to Biden's Gaza ceasefire plan prompts Israel to call it a rejection

Group wants precise start date for permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal from Gaza

Palestinians walk at sunset among destroyed buildings at Khan Younis refugee camp, in the south of the Gaza Strip. EPA

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Hamas’s response to US proposals to pause the Gaza war is laden with strict conditions, including a precise date for the start of a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from the entire enclave, sources told The National on Wednesday.

Israel said the response, handed on Tuesday night to Egyptian and Qatari mediators, amounted to a rejection.

A Hamas official said the Palestinian group simply repeated long-standing demands the proposals have not met.

In Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hamas proposed "numerous changes" in its response, including some that are not workable. But he insisted the US and fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar will press ahead to bridge gaps between the group and Israel.

"Hamas could have answered with a single word: Yes," Mr Blinken told a news conference in the Qatari capital. He is on his eighth tour of the Middle East since the Gaza war broke out in October.

Negotiators have been trying for months to mediate a ceasefire and free the hostages held by Hamas, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza.

"But in the days ahead, we are going to continue to push on an urgent basis with our partners with Qatar, with Egypt, to try to close this deal," Mr Blinken said.

The sources said the Hamas response would be jointly reviewed by the group’s negotiators and the Qatari and Egyptian mediators before it is presented to US President Joe Biden’s administration.

“The review will not touch on the core substance of the response. It will only clarify the language,” said one of the sources. “As is, the response is full of conditions, questions and requests for clarifications.”

The US three-phase proposals, announced by Mr Biden last month, envisage a six-week truce, a prisoner and hostage swap between Hamas and Israel and a guarantee that negotiations on a permanent ceasefire will start as soon as the temporary truce ends.

Hamas has long insisted it wants Israel to make a firm commitment that a permanent ceasefire would be in place after the initial six-week truce.

Hamas, according to the sources, also wants a full Israeli withdrawal, including from the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

“Hamas wants the Rafah crossing to be Palestinian-Egyptian. No one else's,” said another source.

Israel captured the Palestinian end of the border crossing on May 7, arguing that it wanted to stop the smuggling of money and weapons to Hamas through underground tunnels.

Egypt has angrily rejected the allegations and, in response, has since closed its side of the crossing.

The source said Hamas’s response also included demands for guarantees for the reconstruction of Gaza. It also wants Israel stripped of its right of veto over high profile Palestinians sentenced to life or detained in Israeli prisons, whom the group wants to see freed in exchange for the estimated 120 hostages, and bodies of hostages, it holds.

“We reiterated our previous stance. I believe there are no big gaps. The ball is now in the Israeli courtyard,” a senior Hamas official told Reuters.

While the US has said Israel accepted its proposal, Israel has not publicly acknowledged the acceptance.

Israel, which has continued assaults in central and southern Gaza, has repeatedly said it would not commit to an end of its campaign before Hamas is eliminated.

An Israeli official said on Tuesday the country had received Hamas's answer and that it has “changed all of the main and most meaningful parameters”.

The UN Security Council on Monday backed a US resolution supporting the proposal outlined by Mr Biden on May 31.

The war in Gaza was triggered by a surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 and saw the group’s fighters take about 240 others hostage.

The attack drew a devastating Israeli response that has so far killed more than 37,100 Palestinians, injured 84,832 and displaced most of the enclaves’s 2.3 million residents.