Hamas to stay out of Gaza truce talks, Iran weighs halting response to Israel

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Wednesday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for Thursday in Qatar, dimming hopes for a negotiated truce that Iranian sources say could hold back an Iranian attack on Israel.

The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar's capital Doha on Thursday, and that a ceasefire agreement was still possible. However Axios reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed a trip to the Middle East that had been expected to begin on Tuesday.

Three senior Iranian officials have said that only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil last month.

The Israeli government said it would send a delegation to Thursday's talks, but Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, requested a workable plan to implement a proposal it has already accepted rather than more talks.

"Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution and the Biden speech, and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it," Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

"Going to new negotiation allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres," he added.

A ceasefire deal would aim to end fighting in Gaza and ensure the release of Israeli hostages held in the enclave in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel, but the two sides remain divided by sequencing and other issues.

Hamas wants an agreement to end the war and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a basic pre-condition for releasing hostages, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will only agree to a pause in fighting to allow as many hostages to return as possible. He has repeatedly said the war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

Reuters