A Hamas official says the group has softened its demands for a ceasefire with Israel.
Spokesman Ghazi Hamad says Hamas is now prepared for a partial truce that would only include the Gaza Strip. Hamad says the proposal has been relayed to Egyptian mediators.
This is a dramatic departure for Hamas. The group previously has demanded the West Bank be included in any deal.
In return, Hamas wants Israel and Egypt to open their trade and passenger crossings with Gaza, which have been sealed since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza last June.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s state-run newspaper al-Ahram said yesterday that Egyptian negotiators had reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on a truce with Israel.
“Egypt has reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on the methods of achieving a period of calm with the Israelis, and [intelligence chief] Omar Suleiman will relay the results of these contacts and the principles of the agreement to Israel to reach a final agreement,” the paper said.
Al-Ahram attributed the information to “an informed source,” but the comments came in the context of comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to reporters accompanying him on a visit to France.
In related news, Israel said yesterday that a mission by former US president Jimmy Carter to work out a ceasefire with Hamas had failed.
Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter’s meetings over the weekend with Hamas officials in Damascus. Gilad told Israel’s Army Radio that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal had not budged in his demands, and thus Carter had failed.
In other news, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in the northern part of the Gaza Strip yesterday near the Erez border crossing with Israel, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.
Islamic Jihad and a militant group belonging to the Fatah faction said three of their fighters were killed while trying to attack an army base near the crossing.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS