Hamas wants a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza and swap all Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, a senior official from the Palestinian militant group said, rejecting Israel's offer of an interim truce.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, the group's Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said the group would no longer agree to interim deals, adopting a position that Israel is unlikely to accept and potentially further delaying an end to the devastating attacks that restarted in recent weeks.
Instead, Mr Hayya said Hamas was ready to immediately engage in "comprehensive package negotiations" to release all remaining hostages in its custody in return for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
"Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners (hostages)," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We will not be part of passing this policy."
Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
"Hamas's comments demonstrate they are not interested in peace but perpetual violence. The terms made by the Trump Administration have not changed: release the hostages or face hell," said National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt.
The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.
Israel had proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war.
Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions - that it lay down its arms. In his speech, Mr Hayya accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with "impossible conditions."
Hamas released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on 19 January.
In March, Israel's military resumed its ground and aerial offensive on Gaza, abandoning the ceasefire after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.
Israeli officials say that the offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized.
Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 32 Palestinians, including women and children, across the Gaza Strip today, local health authorities said.
One of those strikes killed six people and wounded several others at a UN-run school in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted a Hamas command center.
'Starvation as a weapon'
Israel said yesterday that it had converted 30% of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive it resumed in March, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month that the military was leaving Gaza "smaller and more isolated".
The United Nations said half a million Palestinians have been displaced since the offensive resumed, triggering what it has described as the most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began with Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
"Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive," the chief executives of 12 NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, wrote in a joint statement.
The leader of Qatar, which along with Egypt and the US helped mediate the January ceasefire deal, blamed Israel for its collapse.
"As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement," Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said during a visit to Moscow.
Israel's renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war began to 51,065, most of them civilians.
The war was triggered by Hamas' 7 October 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
