Hamas has rejected an Israeli ceasefire proposal that would have required it to disarm, according to a report on Tuesday.
“The Israeli proposal relayed to the movement through Egypt explicitly called for the disarmament of Hamas without any Israeli commitment to end the war or withdraw from Gaza. Hamas therefore rejected the offer in its entirety,” a senior Palestinian official told the BBC.
The proposal also called for a six-week ceasefire which would have included restarting the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, halted by Israel in early March, according to the report.
In return, Hamas was to have released half the remaining live captives in the first week of the ceasefire. Fifty-nine hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, of whom 24 are believed to be alive.
Israel’s proposal was submitted days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. President Donald Trump, according to the BBC.
Hamas at the beginning of April rejected another truce offer, proposing a 50-day halt in hostilities and a step-by-step process for exchanging Israeli hostages and Palestinian security prisoners.
Under the terms of that proposal, Hamas was to have released five Israeli hostages, including American-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander, in several phases. In return, Israel was to have freed some 250 imprisoned Arab terrorists along with 2,000 terrorist suspects detained following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
The initiative also included a pause in Israeli military actions and the reopening of border crossings to allow for the entry of aid.
The spokesman for Hamas’s military wing told the BBC on Tuesday that the terrorist group had “lost contact” with Alexander’s captors after what he described as “a direct strike on their location.”
