Falcon powers – Israeli media reported on Tuesday that mediators are awaiting Hamas’ approval to start a new round of negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal.
The Israeli army radio cited sources saying “Qatar and Egypt are waiting for Hamas’ approval to start a new round of negotiations”.
Earlier, the Israeli broadcaster “Kan 11” reported on Monday evening that Tel Aviv intends to formally present its proposal for a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas to the mediators on Tuesday, without revealing the details of the proposal, which it said was approved by the security cabinet the previous night.
This comes amid the “Israeli concerns” cited by the channel’s political correspondent, that the massacre carried out by the occupation in Rafah, which killed 45 civilians, “will make it difficult to resume negotiations”.
According to the report, “it is not clear how the scheduled negotiations for this week will be resumed, given the Israeli belief that they will be affected by the events in Rafah, whether on Hamas’ position or on the mediators’ position”.
The channel quoted a foreign diplomat (unnamed) as saying that “the concerns we warned about regarding the attack in Rafah have become a reality”, while another source said that “as long as Israel does not stop its military operations in Rafah, the talks will not reach a solution”.
This comes in the aftermath of the killing of an Egyptian soldier in an exchange of fire with the Israeli occupation army in the Rafah crossing area; Israeli reports indicated discussions held by army and Shin Bet officials with their counterparts in Egypt regarding the incident.
For his part, the Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, denied on Monday that his movement had received any confirmation from the mediators regarding Israel’s claim to have formulated a new prisoner exchange deal, stressing that the issue cannot be addressed before the “comprehensive cessation of aggression” on the Gaza Strip.
