HAMAS has not approved ‘insufficient’ new maps presented by the Israeli side as part of efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
The maps remain insufficient and do not meet the minimum requirements of Hamas, a source familiar with the course of negotiations has said.
The source, speaking on Thursday, indicated that mediators will continue their efforts with both sides in an attempt to bridge the gap and reach a consensus regarding these maps.
According to the same source, the current priority centres around reaching an understanding on three key issues: The free entry of humanitarian aid, the withdrawal of maps from the Gaza Strip, and the provision of necessary guarantees to achieve a permanent and comprehensive end to the war.
The source also revealed that negotiations have not yet entered the stage of discussing prisoner exchange, clarifying that this file will not be opened until clear understandings are reached on the three aforementioned issues.
Earlier last week, Israel presented a redeployment map for the Gaza Strip that includes maintaining its military forces in more than 40 per cent of the territory – an arrangement the Palestinian resistance movement categorically rejects.
Israeli occupation forces continued, meanwhile, their genocidal war on the Gaza Strip for the 650th day, killing and starving people with American political and military support, amid international silence.
Hamas warned on Thursday that famine in the Gaza Strip has reached dangerous levels, urging Arab and Islamic countries to take immediate action to break the blockade and allow the entry of aid.
In a press statement, the Movement said that the Israeli ‘fascist’ government’s use of hunger and deprivation of basic life necessities in Gaza as one of the tools of the ongoing genocide for more than 21 months ‘constitutes a deepening of the most heinous crimes in modern history, committed against children and innocent civilians’.
It added that the international community and its institutions, foremost among them the UN Security Council, turning a blind eye to a humanitarian catastrophe and horrific crimes committed daily by the Israeli army, in full view and sound, represents a dangerous precedent that reinforces a mindset of lawlessness and violations of international and humanitarian law.
Hamas called on the Arab and Islamic countries and the United Nations to take urgent action and apply pressure to break the siege, allow the entry of food and humanitarian aid, and put an end to this brutal cycle of killing, genocide, and starvation in the Gaza Strip.
