The terrorist Hamas organisation has responded to a proposal delivered last week by mediators from Qatar and Egypt who are supported by the US and Israel with a four-and-a-half-month ceasefire plan that would bring an end to the war.
On October 7, Israel began a bloody onslaught on Gaza that left 66,978 Palestinians injured and at least 27,585 dead.
According to the UN, 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli offensive, which has caused severe shortages of food, potable water, and medicine for 85% of the population.
According to a draft paper published on Wednesday, February 7, the Hamas counter-proposal includes three 45-day periods.
Read Also: Israel And Hamas Negotiate A Deal To Send Aid To Gaza
The proposed compromise would see Palestinian resistance groups exchange the remaining Israeli prisoners of war captured on October 7th for Palestinian captives. The reconstruction of Gaza would begin, Israeli forces would withdraw entirely, and bodies and remains would be exchanged.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel on Tuesday night after meeting with the leaders of mediators Qatar and Egypt in the war’s most serious diplomatic drive to date, with the goal of securing an extended truce between the two sides.
The counterproposal from Hamas stated that in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails, all Israeli women hostages, males under 19, the elderly, and the sick would be released during the first 45 days of the agreement.
In the second phase, the remaining male hostages would be set free; in the third phase, they would continue to be traded. Hamas would anticipate that the parties would have come to an agreement on a cease-fire by the end of the third phase.
In an amendment to the plan, the organisation stated that it wanted 1,500 convicts released, with a third of them to be chosen from a list of Palestinians who had been given life sentences by Israel.
The truce would also increase the passage of food and other help to Gaza’s desperate population, who are starving and facing severe shortages of basic goods as a result of Israel’s cruel siege of the region.
