Hamas has rejected an Egyptian proposal to place the Rafah border crossing under forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas officials said Wednesday.
Hamas also rejected an Egyptian proposal to deploy international troops in the Gaza Strip in the context of a new cease-fire agreement with Israel, the officials added. The Egyptian proposals are backed by a number of Arab and EU countries, they said.
Hamas officials, meanwhile, continued to issue contradictory statements regarding their readiness to reach a new cease-fire with Israel. Hamas leaders in Syria and Lebanon said they would not agree to a long-term truce because they wanted to "preserve the right to respond to Israeli violations and aggression."
But their colleagues in the Gaza Strip sounded more optimistic. Ahmed Yussef, an adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he did not rule out the possibility of reaching a cease-fire agreement "within 48 hours." He said Hamas would stop firing rockets at Israel once the IDF halted its military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Yussef added that any cease-fire agreement should include the reopening of the border crossings and an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In Cairo, Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman met with Hamas representatives to discuss the latest proposals and ways of ending the violence in the Gaza Strip. Suleiman reportedly told the Hamas delegation - whose members included Imadal-Alami and Muhammad Nasser - that Egypt would not reopen the Rafah border crossing unless Abbas's forces were allowed to return to the terminal. |