Hamas Delegation Due in Cairo to Discuss Egypt’s Plan to End Israeli War on Gaza
A delegation of high-level Hamas officials is due in Egypt later today for talks with Cairo about putting an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza, a day after Cairo announced it had put forward a framework proposal to end the nearly 12-week Israeli war.
A Hamas delegation is due in Cairo on Friday, December 29, to give its observations about an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.
Sources close to Hamas told Agence France-Presse that Cairo’s three-stage plan provides for renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of captives held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners at Israeli jails.
On Thursday, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, said that Cairo has yet to receive a response from either ‘Israel’ or Hamas and that it would only provide additional details about the plan once both parties have presented their stances.
The proposal is an attempt “to bring viewpoints between all concerned parties closer, in an effort to stop Palestinian bloodshed and the aggression against the Gaza Strip and restore peace and stability to the region,” he said.
The first stage of the Egyptian plan would be a two-week halt to the fighting, extendable to three or four, in exchange for the release of 40 captives — women, minors, and elderly men, especially sick ones.
In return, the Israeli occupation would release 120 Palestinian security prisoners of the same categories. During this time, “hostilities” would stop, Israeli tanks would withdraw, and humanitarian aid would enter Gaza, the plan reportedly stipulated, according to a version of the proposal that was published earlier this week by Al-Jazeera.
The second phase would see an Egypt-sponsored “Palestinian national talk” aimed at ending the division between Palestinian factions — mainly the Fatah party-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas — and leading to the formation of a technocratic government in the West Bank and Gaza that would oversee the reconstruction of the Strip and pave the way for Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections, according to the Egyptian proposal.
The third stage would include a comprehensive ceasefire, the release of the remaining Israeli captives, including soldiers, in return for a to-be-determined number of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance groups — including those arrested after October 7 and some convicted of what occupation describes as “serious terror offenses”.
In this phase, the Israeli occupation army would withdraw its forces from cities in the Gaza Strip and allow displaced Gazans from the enclave’s north to return to their homes.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are said to have rejected the plan.
On Thursday (December 28), an Egyptian source told the Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadid that any talk of the complete removal of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the postwar Gazan political scene is not realistic, and it would be better to strive for a consensus on the political structure of the Strip.
