Hamas, Israel blame each other for ceasefire delay

The Palestinian group Hamas and Israel traded blame on Wednesday over their failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.

Hamas said that Israel had laid down further conditions, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the group of going back on understandings already reached.

“The occupation has set new conditions related to withdrawal, ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of the displaced, which has delayed reaching the agreement that was available,” Hamas said. It added that it was showing flexibility and that the talks, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, were serious.

The US and Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up efforts to conclude a phased deal in the past two weeks. One of the challenges has been agreements on Israeli troop deployments.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, speaking with commanders in southern Gaza, said on Monday that Israel will retain security control of the enclave, including by means of buffer zones and controlling posts.

Hamas is demanding an end to the war, while Israel says it wants to end Hamas’ rule of the enclave first, to ensure it will no longer pose a threat to Israelis.

Meanwhile Israeli forces kept up pressure on the northern Gaza Strip, in one of the most punishing campaigns of the 14-month war, including around three hospitals on the northern edge of the enclave, in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia.

Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone. Israel denies this and says it has instructed civilians to leave those areas for their own safety while its troops battle Hamas.

Israeli strikes killed at least 24 people across Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said. One strike hit a former school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City’s suburb of Sheikh Radwan, they added.

Several Palestinians were killed and wounded in the Al Mawasi area, an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, where the military said it was targeting another Hamas operative.

Earlier Iran denounced what it termed Israel’s “brazen admission” of having killed former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year, accusing the country of having carried out a “heinous crime” and defending its missile-strike response.

“This brazen admission marks the first time the Israeli regime has openly confessed to its responsibility for this heinous crime,” said Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani in a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general.

On Monday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz acknowledged his country was responsible for the killing, the first time an official admission had been made.

Haniyeh, who was seen as leading Hamas’s negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, was killed in a guesthouse in Tehran on July 31, reportedly by an explosive device that had been placed by Israeli operatives weeks before.

Until Monday, Israel had never admitted to killing Haniyeh, but Iran and Hamas had attributed the Hamas political leader’s death to the nation.

On Tuesday, Iranian UN Ambassador Iravani termed Israel’s killing of Haniyeh a “heinous terrorist act,” adding that Katz’s statement showed Iran was justified in striking Israel in retaliation.

Agencies