Hamas wants it in writing that Israel won’t resume Gaza war after first hostages are released

BEIRUT — A Hamas political official said Friday that the Palestinian terrorist group is still insisting on written guarantees from mediators in the ongoing cease-fire negotiations that Israel will not resume the war after the first group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released.

While the two sides have agreed on a general framework for a deal, the main sticking point remains that Hamas wants it to result in a permanent cease-fire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that any agreement “must allow Israel to return to fighting until all the objectives of the war are achieved.”

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’ political office in Lebanon, said Hamas has been “flexible” on some points but continues to insist that “negotiations should continue for a permanent cease-fire until a permanent cease-fire is reached,” as opposed to the wording in the current proposal, under which the cease-fire should continue as long as negotiations continue.

“Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression” at any time, he said. “We want something in writing to ensure that negotiations continue … in order to reach a permanent cease-fire.”

Abdul-Hadi said that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the ruling party in Gaza after the war but wants to see a Palestinian government of technocrats. However, he said the form that future governance in the enclave should take is “a Palestinian matter that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people” and is not on the table in the current negotiations.

“We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase,” he said. “We want to have a partnership and national consensus.”

Abdul-Hadi said a meeting between Hamas and its main rival, Fatah, is expected to take place in China later this month and that “We hope that this meeting will result in a national consensus.” The meeting was previously scheduled to take place last month but was postponed, with the two sides trading blame for the delay.

Meanwhile, a U.K.-based aid group said one of its employees in Gaza was killed Friday in an Israeli strike that hit its warehouse located inside an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone. The strike also killed three staffers from other aid groups using the warehouse, the al-Khair foundation said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on Friday’s strike. The warehouse was located in Muwasi, an area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast that is part of a “humanitarian safe zone” where Israeli has told Palestinians to take refuge.

After a two-week Israeli offensive in northern Gaza, dozens of bodies were collected throughout Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and brought to Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in which terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

A risk of regional escalation remains. Israel’s military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in northern Israel, where the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade border fire.