Palestinian resistance group Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday of blocking efforts to reach a cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip.
“While Hamas showed flexibility to reach an agreement to stop the Israeli aggression, Netanyahu is placing more obstacles to the negotiations by escalating his aggression and crimes against our people and intensifying his attempts to forcibly displace them to thwart all efforts to reach a deal,” it said in a statement.
Hamas called on mediators to intervene “to end Netanyahu's manipulations and crimes,” and the international community and the UN to shoulder their legal and humanitarian responsibilities "to stop the crime of genocide" against the Palestinians in Gaza.
CIA Director William Burns and head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, arrived in Egypt on Monday for talks on a Gaza cease-fire and prisoner swap deal between Tel Aviv and Hamas.
For months, efforts by the US, Qatar, and Egypt to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas for a hostage exchange and cease-fire have been hampered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of Hamas' call to halt hostilities.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.
Nearly 38,200 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 87,900 others injured, according to local health authorities.
Nine months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
