By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Hamas has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire proposal with Israel that includes the return of half the hostages held in Gaza and Israel’s release of some Palestinian prisoners, an Egyptian official source said on Monday.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim confirmed the group’s approval on Facebook. Hamas said other Palestinian factions informed mediators of their approval also.
There was no Israeli response to the Hamas proposal itself but an Israeli official confirmed it was received. Egypt and Qatar have been mediating between the sides with U.S. support.
Israel’s plans to seize control of Gaza City in the heart of the Palestinian enclave have stirred alarm abroad and at home, where tens of thousands of Israelis on Sunday held some of the largest protests since the war began, urging a deal to end the fighting and free the remaining 50 hostages held in Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Israeli officials believe 20 are alive.
Thousands of Palestinians fearing an imminent Israeli ground offensive have left their homes in eastern areas of Gaza City, now under constant Israeli bombardment, for points to the west and south in the shattered territory.
In an apparent show of force on Monday, Israeli tanks advanced into the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, according to witnesses who counted the presence of at least nine tanks and bulldozers.
Israel’s Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir, said his country was at a turning point in the Gaza war, “with its focus on enhancing the strikes against Hamas in Gaza City,” the military spokesman said in a statement.
In a video issued by his office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “I, like you, hear the reports in the media, and from them you can get one impression – Hamas is under immense pressure.”
The Egyptian official source stated that the proposal accepted by Hamas included a suspension of Israeli military operations for 60 days and outlined a framework for a comprehensive deal to end the nearly two-year-old conflict.
A source familiar with the negotiations said the proposal closely mirrored an earlier plan put forward by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, which Israel had accepted.
The mediators met Hamas representatives in Cairo on Sunday. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, joined the discussions on Monday and met both Egyptian President el-Sisi and Hamas representatives, said an official briefed on the meetings.
Israel approved the plan to take control of Gaza City earlier this month, but officials had said it could take weeks to start, leaving the door open for a ceasefire, even though Netanyahu had said it would get under way “fairly quickly” and end the war with Hamas’ defeat.
PALESTINIANS FLEE EXPECTED GAZA CITY ATTACK
An Israeli armoured incursion into Gaza City could displace hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have been uprooted multiple times during the war.
Netanyahu has described Gaza City as Hamas’ last big urban bastion. But with Israel already holding 75% of Gaza, the military has warned that expanding the offensive could endanger hostages still alive and draw troops into protracted and deadly guerrilla warfare.
Dani Miran, whose son Omri was taken hostage on October 7, said he feared the consequences of an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza City. “I’m scared that my son would be hurt,” he told Reuters in Tel Aviv on Monday.
In Gaza City, many Palestinians have also been calling for protests to demand an end to a war that has demolished much of the territory and for Hamas to intensify talks to avert the Israeli ground offensive.
Ahmed Mheisen, Palestinian shelter manager in Beit Lahiya, a war-devastated suburb abutting eastern Gaza City, said 995 families had departed the area in recent days for the south.
“I am heading south because I need to ease my mental state,” Mousa Obaid, a Gaza City resident, told Reuters. “I do not want to keep moving left and right endlessly. There is no life left, and as you can see, living conditions are hard, prices are high, and we have been without work for over a year and a half.”
CEASEFIRE TALKS
The last round of indirect ceasefire talks ended in deadlock in late July with the sides trading blame for its collapse.
Israel has said it will agree to cease hostilities if all the hostages are released and Hamas lays down its arms – the latter demand publicly rejected by the Islamist group until a Palestinian state is established.
A Hamas official told Reuters earlier on Monday the group rejected Israeli demands to disarm or expel its leaders from Gaza.
Sharp differences also appeared to remain over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and how humanitarian aid will be delivered around the enclave, where malnutrition is rife and aid groups warn of unfolding famine.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform on Monday: “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be.”
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 61,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israel’s ensuing air and ground war in Gaza, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.
Five more Palestinians have died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday, raising the number of people who died of those causes to 263, including 112 children, since the war started.
(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Mahmoud Issa in Gaza, Andrew Mills in Doha, Jonathan Landay in Washington, Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidvin in Geneva; Writing by Howard Goller; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Alison Williams and Mark Porter)
