GAZA STRIP: A Hamas official said Sunday (May 5) the group’s delegation for Gaza truce talks in Cairo was leaving for Qatar after a public disagreement with Israel intensified over demands to end their seven-month war.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “surrendering” to a demand to end the war would amount to defeat.
The Qatar-based political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, countered by accusing Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks.
The Hamas official, who requested anonymity to discuss the negotiations, told AFP that “the meeting with the Egyptian intelligence minister has ended and the Hamas delegation is leaving for Doha for further consultations”.
The Hamas negotiators are due back in Cairo on Tuesday, said Al-Qahera News, a site linked to Egyptian intelligence services.
CIA director Bill Burns meanwhile was headed to Doha for “emergency” talks on mediation efforts with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, a source with knowledge of the discussions told AFP.
Netanyahu on Sunday also announced a government decision to close operations in Israel of Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera, which has broadcast round-the-clock coverage of the conflict.
It went off-air a short time later.
The network condemned Israel’s decision as a “criminal act”, and said it would take legal action.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
