Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Trump posted a statement on social media on Friday, calling on the Israeli regime to stop bombing Gaza and prepare for the release of its captives from Gaza because he now believes Hamas is “ready for a lasting PEACE.”
However, Axios reported Netanyahu took the opposite stance to what Trump had proposed, telling his team to stick to the plan they had before the US president made his Friday statement.
According to the report, Netanyahu instructed his team that Hamas’s reply should be treated as a rejection of the Trump peace plan.
Netanyahu was surprised by Trump’s announcement on Gaza and wanted to make sure it did not become established that Hamas had given a positive answer to Trump’s plan, Axios reported.
In a statement, Hamas said its priority was to restore peace in Gaza. It said it appreciated the work of Trump, along with Arab and Muslim countries, to create a plan that calls for “an end to the war on the Gaza Strip, the exchange of prisoners, the immediate entry of aid, the rejection of occupation of the Strip, and the rejection of the forcible displacement of our Palestinian people from it.”
Hamas noted those were the aspects of the Trump peace plan that it liked. It added that in return for an end to the Gaza war and the Israeli pullout from the Palestinian territory, it agrees to release all the captives alive and deceased, according to the exchange ratio set out in Trump’s plan.
Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera that the priority for them is to stop the Israeli regime forces’ ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
“The priority is to stop the war and massacres, and from this perspective, we responded positively to the Trump plan,” Abu Marzouk said.
Hamas wants to hold negotiations on the details of the Israeli withdrawal, he added. Hamas will be able to release all of the captives “provided that the necessary field conditions for carrying out the exchange are met.”
Press TV’s website
