GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Hamas announced on Saturday that it had submitted its response to a ceasefire proposal from US envoy Steve Witkoff, saying 10 living hostages would be freed from Gaza under the deal.
The White House had said the latest proposal for a deal was approved in advance by Israel, which on Friday warned Hamas to either accept the deal and free the hostages “or be annihilated”.
The Palestinian militant group did not explicitly say it had accepted the version of the proposal it received on Thursday, which had also reportedly included a provision for the release of 10 living hostages and a truce of at least 60 days.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said it had “submitted its response to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s latest proposal to the mediating parties”.
“As part of this agreement, 10 living prisoners of the occupation held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of 18 bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,“ it added.
A breakthrough in negotiations has been elusive ever since a previous ceasefire fell apart on March 18 with the resumption of Israeli operations.
But US President Donald Trump had said Friday that the parties were “very close to an agreement”.
Hamas has maintained that any deal should lay out a pathway to a permanent end to the war, something Israel has resisted.
Two sources close to the negotiations had said Witkoff's proposal involved a 60-day truce, potentially extendable to 70 days.
It would see the release of five living hostages and nine bodies in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners during the first week, followed by a second exchange the following week, the sources said.
- 'Hungriest place on Earth' -
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
“After 603 days of war, we wish to remind everyone that war is a means, not an end in itself,“ the main group representing hostages’ families said in a statement.
Israeli society was “united around one consensus”, bringing home all the remaining hostages “even at the cost of ending the war”, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum added.
Israel, however, insists on the need to destroy Hamas, and recently stepped up its campaign in Gaza in a bid to defeat the group.
But it has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations recently warned the entire population was at risk of famine.
This week a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency called the territory “the hungriest place on Earth”.
Aid is only trickling into Gaza after the partial lifting by Israel of a more than two-month blockade, and the UN has recently reported looting of its trucks and warehouses.
The World Food Programme has called on Israel “to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster”, saying desperation was “contributing to rising insecurity”.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 4,117 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,381, mostly civilians.
Hamas's attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
