A top Hamas official disregarded US President Joe Biden’s optimism on Saturday, following the latter’s declaration that negotiations in Doha had brought a ceasefire in Gaza closer.
“To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told AFP in a statement. “We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”
Following two days of negotiations in Qatar, where Washington attempted to mend rifts between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian organization that has been at war in the Gaza Strip for almost ten months, Biden delivered his remarks.
Past hope during months of intermittent peace negotiations has turned out to be misplaced.
However, with the swift assassinations of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr, the top operations chief of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, in late July, the stakes have increased dramatically.
Fears of a wider Middle East war and threats of revenge from Iran and Hezbollah followed their killings.Western and Arab officials have been traveling the region in an attempt to prevent a wider conflict. They are pushing for a Gaza agreement, which they believe has the potential to prevent a wider conflict.
This weekend, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the area in an attempt to facilitate an agreement.
Officials from Hamas have taken issue with “new conditions” from Israel in the most recent plan drafted by Washington.
After returning from Doha, the group from Israel voiced “cautious optimism” about the likelihood of an agreement, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
