A Hamas leader said yesterday that the group was studying Israel’s latest cease-fire proposal with a “positive spirit,” raising hopes of progress in the stalled efforts for a truce.
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political wing, said that a delegation would travel to Cairo to discuss the cease-fire.
The current deal would include a weekslong truce and the release of hostages held by Hamas and of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The proposal would also allow civilians to return to northern Gaza and would enable increased delivery of aid to the territory.
The complex cease-fire negotiations have dragged on for months. This week, Israel softened some of its positions, saying that it would allow Palestinians to return north en masse and would lower the number of hostages accepted for the cease-fire to 33, from 40.
But Israel’s insistence on a ground invasion of Rafah, a city where around a million Palestinians are sheltering in the southern Gaza Strip, remains a major sticking point. “If the enemy carries out the Rafah operation, negotiations will stop,” a Hamas spokesman said.