Abby Sewell
AP / August 15, 2024
DOHA, Qatar – A top Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group is losing faith in the United States’ ability to mediate a cease-fire in Gaza ahead of a new round of talks scheduled for this week amid mounting pressure to bring an end to the 10-month-old war with Israel.
Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that Hamas will only participate if the talks focus on implementing a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden in May and endorsed internationally.
The U.S. referred to it as an Israeli proposal and Hamas agreed to it in principle, but Israel said Biden’s speech was not entirely consistent with the proposal itself. Both sides later proposed changes, leading each to accuse the other of obstructing a deal.
Hamas is especially resistant to Israel’s demand that it maintain a lasting military presence in two strategic areas of Gaza after any cease-fire, conditions only made public in recent weeks.
“We have informed the mediators that … any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new,” said Hamdan, who is a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, which includes the group’s top political leaders and sets its policies. “Otherwise, Hamas finds no reason to participate.”
It was not clear late Wednesday if Hamas would attend the talks beginning Thursday.
Hamdan spoke amid a new push for an end to the war, sparked by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and dragged about 250 hostages into Gaza. Israel responded with a devastating bombardment and ground invasion that has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and decimated wide swaths of the territory.
There are now fears the conflict could ignite a wider conflagration.
In an hour-long interview, Hamdan accused Israel of not engaging in good faith and said the group does not believe the U.S. can or will apply pressure on Israel to seal a deal.
Hamdan claimed Israel has “either sent a non-voting delegation (to the negotiations) or changed delegations from one round to another, so we would start again, or it has imposed new conditions.”
Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the claim, but Israel has denied sabotaging talks and accuses Hamas of doing so.
During the interview, Hamdan provided copies of several iterations of the cease-fire proposal and the group’s written responses. A regional official familiar with the talks verified the documents were genuine. The official offered the assessment on condition of anonymity in order to share information not made public.
The documents show that at several points Hamas attempted to add additional guarantors — including Russia, Turkey and the United Nations — but Israel’s responses always included only the existing mediators, the U.S., Egypt and Qatar.
In a statement Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister’s office said some changes it has asked for were merely “clarifications” adding details, such as to clauses dealing with how Palestinians will return to northern Gaza, how many hostages will be released during specific phases and whether Israel can veto which Palestinian prisoners will be released in exchange for Israeli hostages. It accused Hamas of asking for 29 changes to the proposal.
“The fact is that it is Hamas which is preventing the release of our hostages, and which continues to oppose the outline,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month.
Hamdan, however, claimed that more than once Hamas accepted in whole or in large part a proposal put to them by the mediators only to have Israel reject it out of hand, ignore it, or launch major new military operations in the days that followed.
On one occasion, one day after Hamas accepted a cease-fire proposal, Israel launched a new operation in Rafah in southern Gaza. Israel said the proposal remained far from its demands.
Hamdan said that CIA Director William Burns told Hamas via mediators at the time that Israel would agree to the deal.
But, he said, “the Americans were unable to convince the Israelis. I think they did not pressure the Israelis.”
Asked about Hamas’ concern about the U.S. role, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said: “Well, the United States does not think that Hamas is an honest broker.”
As to whether Hamas will attend the talks, Patel said representatives of Qatar had assured them they would.
“We fully expect these talks to move forward as they should. Our point of view is that all negotiators should return to the table,” Patel said.
Negotiations have taken on new urgency as the war has threatened to ignite a regional conflict.
Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are mulling retaliatory strikes against Israel after the killings of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and of top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut. Israel claimed the latter strike, but has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the blast that killed Haniyeh.
After a brief truce in November that saw the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages, multiple rounds of cease-fire talks have fallen apart. Around 110 people taken captive remain in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.
Hamdan accused Israel of stepping up its attacks on Hamas leaders after the group agreed in principle to the latest proposal put forward by mediators.
Israel said a July 13 operation in Gaza killed Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing. More than 90 other people also died, local health officials said.
Hamdan insisted Deif is alive.
Two weeks later, Haniyeh was killed, with Hamas and Iran blaming Israel. Hamas then named Yahya Sinwar, its Gaza chief seen as responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, to replace Haniyeh — who had been considered a more moderate figure.
Hamdan acknowledged there are “some difficulties” and delays in communicating with Sinwar, who is believed to be hiding deep in the network of tunnels in the Gaza Strip. But Hamdan insisted this does not pose a major barrier to the negotiations.
The most intractable sticking point in the talks remains whether and how a temporary cease-fire would become permanent.
Israel has been wary of proposals that the initial truce would be extended as long as negotiations continue over a permanent deal. Israel seems concerned Hamas would drag on endlessly with fruitless negotiations.
Hamas has said it is concerned Israel will resume the war once its most vulnerable hostages are returned, a scenario reflected in some of Netanyahu’s recent comments.
All versions of the cease-fire proposal shared by Hamdan stipulated that Israeli forces withdraw completely from Gaza in the deal’s second phase.
Recently, however, officials with knowledge of the negotiations told the AP that Israel had introduced new demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway running across the breadth of the strip, separating Gaza’s south and north. Hamas has insisted on a full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Hamdan said the group had not yet received in writing the new conditions.
Hamdan acknowledged Palestinians have suffered immensely in the war and are yearning for a cease-fire, but insisted the group couldn’t simply give up its demands.
“A cease-fire is one thing,” he said, “and surrender is something else.”
Abby Sewell is the Associated Press news director for Lebanon, Syria and Iraq
Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, David Klepper in Washington and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report
