BEIRUT (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Hamas official Osama Hamdan said his Movement has not yet handed out an official response to the proposed deal after the four-way meeting in Paris.
“When things are ready, and we submit our response to the deal, it would be natural to let that be known,” he told Al Jazeera. “But until this moment, there has been no response from our side to the proposal, and so there is no agreement.”
Hamdan added that part of the Israeli government’s plan is to leak news over the past few weeks to calm down the pressures from the opposition, and it seems like “he reached a point where the leaks are not helping, so he’s spreading practical disinformation.”
“Our stance towards any deal is based on one priority, which is halting the aggression on the entire Palestine and the blockade in Gaza, as well as rebuilding Gaza and the swap deal.”
Asked about the provisions of the deal, Hamdan replied, “The proposal is being studied, so I won’t comment on that.”
On the other hand, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, said Thursday that recent talks in Paris between Qatari, US, Israeli and Egyptian officials had yielded a consolidated truce proposal.
“That proposal has been approved by the Israeli side, and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas side.”
Ansari said there were hopes of “good news” about a new pause in the fighting “in the next couple of weeks.”
