CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday of putting obstacles in front of ceasefire negotiations amid talks aimed at reaching a deal to end the war in Gaza.
The group called on mediators to intervene and stop what it called “manipulations and crimes” by Netanyahu, in a statement on its Telegram account.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its objectives are met.
On Monday, Israeli tanks advanced into the heart of Gaza City after a night of bombardments which Gaza authorities said had killed dozens, even as multi-national negotiations for a ceasefire deal intensified.
“While the Hamas movement demonstrates flexibility and positivity to facilitate reaching an agreement to halt the Zionist aggression, Netanyahu is placing additional obstacles in the way of negotiations as he escalates his aggression and crimes against our people,” the group said.
Hamas on Saturday accepted a key part of a U.S. plan aimed at ending the nine-month war in Gaza, dropping a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the agreement.
A U.S. delegation led by Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns arrived in Cairo on Monday to meet an Egyptian security delegation for a new round of ceasefire talks, the Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News reported.
The war was triggered on Oct. 7 when fighters led by Hamas, which controlled Gaza, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Since then at least 38,193 Palestinians have been killed in the military offensive and 87,903 have been wounded, Gaza’s health ministry said in an update on Monday.
(Reporting by Jaidaa Taha, Nayera Abdallah and Muhammad Al Gebaly; Editing by Susan Fenton and Andrew Heavens)
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