Hamas says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to halt the monthslong war with Israel. The militant group issued a statement Monday saying its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the proposal was “far from Israel’s essential demands,” but that it would nonetheless send negotiators to continue talks on a cease-fire agreement.
"Although the Hamas proposal is far from Israel's necessary requirements, Israel will send a delegation of working-class mediators to exhaust the possibility of reaching an agreement under conditions acceptable to Israel," Netanyahu's office said.
But Israel also said it would continue military operations in Gaza, and the country's military began striking targets in Rafah.
Details of the proposal have not yet been released. In recent days, Egyptian and Hamas officials have said the cease-fire would take place in a series of stages during which Hamas would release hostages it is holding in exchange for Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza.
It is not clear whether the deal will meet Hamas’ key demand of bringing about an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal.
President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to keep him informed about the status of cease-fire talks, which were ongoing in Doha, Qatar, earlier in the day, according to the White House. Biden reiterated U.S. concerns about an invasion of Rafah, telling him a cease-fire was the best way to protect the lives of Israeli hostages, according to a National Security Council spokesperson.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said American officials were reviewing the Hamas response "and discussing it with our partners in the region.” An American official said the U.S. was examining whether Hamas agreed to a version of the deal that had been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else.
Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and partial Israeli troop pullbacks within Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal out of the territory, they said.
Hamas had been seeking clearer guarantees for its key demand of an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal in return for the release of all its hostages, according to Egyptian officials. It was not immediately known if any changes were made.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly rejected that trade-off, vowing to keep up their campaign until Hamas is destroyed after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.