Hamas rejects short-term Gaza truce

A senior Hamas official said yesterday that the group rejects any proposal for a temporary halt to more than a year of fighting in Gaza and insists on a lasting ceasefire.
“The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,” Taher al-Nunu, a senior leader of the movement, told AFP.
Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of “less than a month” to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Wednesday.
Meetings between Mossad head David Barnea, CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha, which concluded on Monday, discussed proposing a “short-term” truce of “less than a month”, the source said on condition of anonymity because of the talks’ sensitivity.
The proposal involves exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to Gaza, the source added.
Meanwhile, at least 30 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip yesterday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the charge.
Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave.
Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said yesterday that one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation”.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed 43,204 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities said.
In the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, four Palestinians were killed in Israeli military operations overnight, the Palestinian health ministry and an official said yesterday.
The Ramallah-based ministry reported “martyrs in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem due to the occupation’s shelling”.