Hamas has not shut the door on negotiations, an official from the Palestinian group said on Wednesday, after Israel launched its most intense bombardment of Gaza since a January 19 ceasefire.
On Wednesday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said 13 people had been killed in new Israeli strikes on the territory since midnight.
“Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher al-Nunu told AFP on the phone from Cairo, also calling for Israel to be forced to implement the ceasefire.
“There is no need for new agreements in light of the existing agreement signed by all parties,” he added.
Under the ceasefire deal drafted under former US President Joe Biden’s administration, a second phase of the truce should have begun in early March.
The agreement stipulated that Israeli forces should withdraw from Gaza and that a more lasting ceasefire should take effect during a second phase.
“We have no conditions, but we demand that the occupation be compelled to immediately halt its aggression and war of extermination, and begin the second phase of negotiations,” Nunu said.
He called on the international community to “take urgent action” to end the war, while accusing Israel of “violating the ceasefire agreement it signed”.
Determined to force Hamas to agree to the release of more hostages, Israel on Tuesday launched the biggest and deadliest wave of air strikes since the truce took effect.
The truce agreement brokered by Qatar, the United States and Egypt took effect more than 15 months into the war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, Israel’s strikes on Tuesday killed more than 400 people, making it one of the deadliest days in Gaza in the entire war.
Leave ‘combat zones,’ Gazans told
The Israeli army on Wednesday urged Gazans to evacuate what it called “combat areas” in the north and south of the Palestinian territory, after it resumed air strikes following a ceasefire breakdown.
In a post on X, military spokesman Avichay Adraee warned people in Beit Hanun, Khirbet Khuza’a and Abasan al-Jadida that “these areas are dangerous combat zones” and they should move to shelters in western Gaza City and Khan Yunis for their own safety.
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