Top Hamas official Osama Hamdan questioned whether the United States has the ability to successfully mediate a ceasefire in Gaza in a new interview.
A new round of ceasefire talks is set to begin on Thursday as the Israel-Hamas war continues into its 10th month of fighting. Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, told the Associated Press (AP) in an interview on Tuesday that Hamas will only participate in the talks if they focus on implementing President Joe Biden‘s ceasefire proposal released in May, which has been internationally endorsed.
Hamdan, however, said that Hamas does not believe the U.S. can or will put pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Additionally, Hamdan claimed Israel is not engaging in ceasefire talks in good faith.
Israel has “either sent a non-voting delegation [to the negotiations] or changed delegations from one round to another, so we would start again, or it has imposed new conditions,” Hamdan told the AP.
Israel has denied sabotaging ceasefire talks and accused Hamas of doing so.
Hamdan claimed that on more than one occasion, Hamas accepted a proposal or at least a large part of a proposal, and Israel either immediately rejected it, ignored it or launched a major new military operation quickly after.
One day after Hamas accepted a ceasefire deal in May, Israel launched a military operation into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Meanwhile, Israel said the deal was far from its demands.
Hamdan said that William Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA), told Hamas through mediators at the time that Israel would agree to the ceasefire proposal.
However, “the Americans were unable to convince the Israelis. I think they did not pressure the Israelis,” Hamdan said.
Meanwhile, Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, told reporters on Tuesday that Washington is “working around the clock every day” to prevent the war from escalating and end suffering in the region.
“Everyone in the region should understand that further attacks only perpetuate conflict and instability and insecurity for everyone,” Patel said.
Newsweek reached out to the Israeli prime minister’s office and the U.S. State Department via online form for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
What is in Biden’s Ceasefire Proposal?
On May 31, Biden detailed his ceasefire proposal to wind down the Israel-Hamas war that started on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages. Israel subsequently launched a military operation in Gaza that has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
Biden’s proposal has three phases, starting with a “full and complete ceasefire,” a withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from densely populated areas in Gaza and an Israeli hostage-Palestinian prisoner exchange, which would free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
There are currently about 110 hostages that remain in Gaza and about a third of them are believed to be dead. The first phase in Biden’s plan would release a number of these hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded. The rest of the living hostages would be released during the second phase. In the second phase, the ceasefire would become permanent. Lastly, the third phase would start the major reconstruction of Gaza.
While Hamas has not accepted Biden’s proposal yet, it confirmed in May its “readiness to deal positively” with it.
“We have informed the mediators that…any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new,” Hamdan said in the new AP interview. “Otherwise, Hamas finds no reason to participate.”
