The head of Hamas informed Reuters on Tuesday that the Palestinian militant group was on the brink of reaching a ceasefire agreement with Israel, even as the deadly assault on Gaza continued and rockets were being launched into Israel.
Hamas officials are “close to reaching a truce agreement” with Israel, and they have submitted their response to Qatari mediators, according to a statement from Ismail Haniyeh sent to Reuters by his aide.
No specifics about the potential agreement were disclosed.
U.S. President Joe Biden indicated on Monday that he believed an agreement was imminent. “We’re closer now than we’ve been before,” said White House spokesperson John Kirby, referring to an agreement aimed at securing the release of some hostages held in Gaza and a temporary cessation of the fighting to allow much-needed aid into the besieged enclave.
Hamas took approximately 240 hostages during its Oct. 7 incursion into Israel, resulting in 1,200 deaths.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, met with Haniyeh in Qatar on Monday to address humanitarian issues related to the conflict, as stated by the Geneva-based ICRC in a press release. She also had separate meetings with Qatari authorities.
While the ICRC confirmed that it was not part of the negotiations for the release of hostages, it expressed readiness, as a neutral intermediary, “to facilitate any future release that the parties agree to.”
Rumors of an impending hostage deal have been circulating for days. Last week, Reuters reported that Qatari mediators were working to secure a deal for Hamas and Israel to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire to enable the delivery of emergency aid to Gaza civilians.
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog expressed hope for an agreement “in the coming days” on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, while Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani stated that the remaining points of contention were “very minor.”
A similar deal has seemed within reach in the past.
“Sensitive negotiations like this can fall apart at the last minute,” cautioned White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday. “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s 75-year history, prompted Israel to invade the Palestinian territory to target Hamas.
Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run government reported that at least 13,300 Palestinians, including at least 5,600 children and 3,550 women, have been killed by relentless Israeli bombing.
Hamas, on its Telegram account on Monday, claimed to have launched a barrage of missiles towards Tel Aviv. Witnesses also reported rockets being fired at central Israel.
HOSPITALS IN PERIL
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Tuesday that at least 17 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza at midnight.
There was no immediate response from Israel.
Gaza’s health ministry stated on Monday that at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured by Israeli fire into the Indonesian Hospital complex, which was surrounded by Israeli tanks.
Health officials indicated that 700 patients, alongside staff, were under Israeli fire.
WAFA reported that the Indonesian Hospital in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Lahia, funded by Indonesian organizations, had been shelled with artillery rounds. Hospital staff denied the presence of any armed militants on the premises.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed being “appalled” by the attack, which, according to unspecified reports, killed 12 people, including patients.
The Israeli Defence Forces stated that troops had fired back at combatants in the hospital while taking “numerous measures to minimize harm” to non-combatants.
Like all other health facilities in the northern half of Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital has mostly ceased operations but is still housing patients, staff, and displaced residents.
Twenty-eight premature babies evacuated from Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, were taken to Egypt for urgent treatment on Monday.
Israeli forces occupied Shifa last week to search for what they said was a tunnel network built by Hamas below the hospital. Hundreds of patients, medical staff, and displaced individuals left Shifa over the weekend, with doctors claiming they were evicted by troops, while Israel said the departures were voluntary.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Idrees Ali and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman & Simon Cameron-Moore)
