Hamas confirms softened position and urges 'clear positive' Israeli response to Gaza deal

Militant group says it is showing greater flexibility for a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory

An Israeli soldier fires a mortar near the Gaza border in the 10th month of the war. Reuters

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Hamas confirmed on Friday it is softening its position towards the terms of a Gaza ceasefire but said it had yet to receive a “clear, positive” Israeli response to the deal on the table, a representative of the Palestinian faction told The National.

Ceasefire talks resumed this week as mediation efforts to pause the war gained momentum. The negotiations in Doha and Cairo involve mid to high-level mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar as well as representatives from Israel and Hamas.

The chances of clinching a deal have increased as domestic opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grows over his perceived failure to agree to a truce, while Hamas appears to be coming under popular pressure to accept a deal.

“The group showed greater flexibility regarding the issue of an immediate Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” Hamas spokesman in Lebanon, Walid Al Kilani, told The National.

“It had modified its position on the issue of the ceasefire, too, and accepted an initial truce in the first five weeks that turns into a sustainable ceasefire at a later stage.”

Mr Al Kilani's position confirms what sources engaged in the negotiations told The National last week, that Hamas has dropped its insistence that Israel must commit in writing to a permanent ceasefire at the end of the first phase of the agreement.

Instead, the group now wants guarantees in writing from the three mediators that talks to reach a permanent ceasefire will start as soon as the first six-week phase begins.

Two sources involved in the talks said Hamas and Israel had made “significant concessions” during intense talks in recent days, and reached a “framework agreement” for a ceasefire that would stop the devastating nine-month-long war, but warned that timetables and many “intricate details” have yet to be ironed out.

Mr Al Kilani said the “main condition is that the agreement be written”. Hamas “has not received any response officially from the mediators until now” and any progress is linked to “a clear positive answer from Tel Aviv”, he added.

In Israel, the Prime Minister's office said a negotiating team had returned on Wednesday from a four-way meeting with the mediators in Doha and another delegation had left for Cairo on Thursday to continue the talks.

A senior official involved in the Doha meetings said on Friday that “mediators are making their utmost efforts to bridge the gap between the two sides”.

“There is progress, but gaps remain and must be filled, and important points must be agreed upon. The most important of these points are the mechanism to end the war, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” the source told The National on condition of anonymity.

Meaningful discussions

Mediators from the US and its Arab allies Egypt and Qatar have been trying for months without success to broker a Gaza ceasefire. The only truce in the war, brokered by the same mediators, lasted a week and ended on December 1 after the release of about 100 hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees.

Israel launched a punishing military campaign on Gaza on October 7, after Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people.

More than 38,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes. The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced and much of the enclave's infrastructure and built-up areas have been reduced to rubble. For weeks, aid groups have warned of a worsening famine.

The war has led to a humanitarian crisis, with many now in the small, densely populated strip facing hunger while famine looms over its north.

US President Joe Biden in May laid out a three-phase approach designed to lead to a permanent end to the nine-month-long war in Gaza. In the first phase, fighting would be halted for a six-week period, during which some of the hostages held by Hamas would be released and much-needed humanitarian aid would be delivered to the besieged strip.

On Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told The National that Israel and Hamas, as well as intermediaries, had held “meaningful discussions” in Doha and Cairo.

“The gaps are narrow enough that they can and should be closed, hopefully soon, and we can get six weeks of calm in Gaza,” said the US official, on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Washington.

The fighting in Gaza has put the Middle East on the precipice of large-scale regional war, as tensions rise between Israel and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Israel has long accused Iran, its archenemy, of encircling it with hostile forces, including Hamas in Gaza.

Mr Kirby said attacks from Yemen's Houthis and other Iran-backed groups should stop immediately.

“These are attacks that never should have happened in the first place. President Biden put together a coalition of some 20 nations in the Red Sea to shoot those attacks down, they need to stop now.”

His call came after three sources within the armed factions told The National on Thursday that Yemen's Houthi rebels and Iraqi militias have informed their ally Hamas they will cease attacks on Israeli targets if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, with the aim of providing the Palestinian faction with greater flexibility during negotiations.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah, has said the so-called anti-Israel Axis of Resistance would accept any deal to which Hamas agrees, despite Israel's warning that a ceasefire would not affect other fronts and would not end its war with the heavily armed group.