Israel-Gaza war: Hamas denies reports it is pulling out of ceasefire talks
- Earlier, AFP cited an official saying Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had told Qatar and Egypt that the organisation would halt negotiations
Hamas denied it is pulling out of ceasefire talks, a day after an Israeli air strike on Gaza aimed at killing two top Hamas officials left at least 90 people dead and 300 injured.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, described as “baseless” an AFP report that the group will quit the talks. Israel’s latest “escalation” had been engineered to “block the way to reaching an agreement”, he added in a brief statement.
Earlier, AFP cited an official saying that Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh had told international mediators Qatar and Egypt that the organisation would halt negotiations due to Israel’s “lack of seriousness, continued policy of procrastination and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres against unarmed civilians”.
Separately, another Hamas official told the news service that military chief Mohammed Deif, a target of Saturday’s strike in the Khan Younis area of the central Gaza Strip, was alive. “Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” the operations of the Hamas military wing, said the official, who was not identified.
There has been no confirmation on the fate of Rafa Salama, the other target of the strike. Deif and Salama, commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, are two of the alleged masterminds behind the October 7 attacks on southern Israel in which almost 1,200 people killed and 250 abducted – 120 of whom are still being held in Gaza.