Hamas said it agreed to a ceasefire proposal on Monday, hours after Israel’s military announced evacuation orders for portions of Rafah, a city in Gaza where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge.
The head of Hamas’s politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, informed Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s minister of intelligence that it agreed to the ceasefire proposal, Hamas said. Israel has not commented on the development.
“I can confirm that Hamas has issued a response,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “We are reviewing that response now and discussing it with our partners in the region.”
Speaking during the White House briefing, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said Hamas has responded to a ceasefire proposal, but he said he would not comment until the United States finished “reviewing” the response.
“We still believe that reaching an agreement is the absolute best outcome,” Kirby said. CIA Director Bill Burns, the lead of the U.S. delegation on negotiations, is in the region.
While details of the agreement are unclear, most iterations of the recent proposals included a roughly six-week pause in fighting, the release of about 30 Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the release of Palestinians detained in Israel’s prison system, and a surge of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The cessation of battle would also allow for additional negotiations to occur.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, said on X that he spoke with Haniyeh, and the Hamas leader told him, “We sent Hamas’ response to the plan proposed by Egypt and Qatar to stop the attacks of the Israeli regime, exchange prisoners, lift the human blockade, and … now the ball is in the opposite court. We are honest in our intentions.”
It’s also unclear whether the proposal Hamas said it agreed to is one that Israel previously supported or would now. Avi Mayer, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post, reported on X that Israeli officials said Hamas’s announcement was deliberately misleading and deceptive.
“Israeli officials are calling Hamas’s announcement that it accepts the current ceasefire agreement ‘a trick,’ saying it refers to a one-sided proposal that did not receive Israeli approval and includes terms considered unacceptable,” Mayer wrote.
Jonathan Conricus, a former Israel Defense Forces spokesman, added: “This reported Hamas approval looks like textbook deception: approving a deal that isn’t on the table in order to apply pressure on Israel to accept Hamas terms.”
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Israeli leaders remained steadfast in their desire to conduct ground operations in Rafah to complete their north-to-south sweep of Gaza to defeat Hamas. U.S. and other world leaders have warned that these operations could result in catastrophic civilian casualties without properly accounting for the more than 1 million Palestinians who have sought refuge there.
The U.S. has sought for several weeks to convince Israel not to go through with a ground invasion of Rafah. The Israelis’ decision to evacuate parts of Rafah came a day after a Hamas rocket attack killed three IDF soldiers and injured several others. The attack occurred at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the primary hub for humanitarian aid to get into Gaza.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
