Follow-up – Al-Rashid
Hamas leader Osama Hamdan confirmed that Israel’s positions and responses to the mediators “are still negative and pose many obstacles to reaching an agreement.”
Hamdan continued, in a press conference on Friday, that “Benjamin Netanyahu’s government still adopts an intransigent position regarding the demands of the resistance factions, and its goals clash with all the initiatives proposed.”
He said, “Netanyahu does not care about releasing his prisoners held by the resistance, and taking his delegation to the negotiations has four nos, the first of which is no to stopping the aggression.”
Hamdan stressed that Hamas dealt “in a positive spirit” with the mediators’ proposals and initiatives regarding the exchange of prisoners and a ceasefire, in the indirect negotiations with Israel.
Hamdan also renewed “the call to take urgent action and challenge the Israeli enemy’s measures and bring relief and food aid into Gaza, by land, sea and air,” calling on all countries “from which food shipments to the Zionist entity originate or pass through their territories to stop their shipments immediately.”
He called on “all international institutions, including UNRWA, not to submit to the will of the Israeli enemy and to return to work in the northern Gaza Strip,” expressing his astonishment at the decision of the World Food Program to suspend the delivery of food aid in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.
Hamdan pointed out that “the deliberate crime of starvation threatens more than 10,000 Palestinians with death,” noting that “the alarm bell has sounded regarding the suffering of our people in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Regarding the decision to prevent entry to Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, Hamdan called for “mobilization in defense of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” saying that “hesitation in defending Al-Aqsa will only be an indication of the inability to be able or take the initiative to defend the nation, its land, and its sanctities.”
Hamdan added that Israel’s attack on the mosque “will not pass without accountability, whatever the costs.”
He also stressed that the steps led by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, and a group of extremists in the Israeli government, “pave the way for a widespread aggression against Al-Aqsa and its worshipers.”
