Qatar’s prime minister said Thursday that Hamas gave a “generally positive” answer to the latest plan for a cease-fire in Gaza, but the Palestinian militant group said it still seeks “a comprehensive and complete” cease-fire to end “the aggression against our people.” Israel has ruled out the kind of permanent cease-fire sought by Hamas.
The Qatari prime minister’s assessment of Hamas came during a news conference with the visiting U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken. The top American diplomat had met earlier Tuesday with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar — key U.S. allies who often serve as mediators between Israel and Hamas.
It’s Blinken’s fifth visit to the Middle East since the war in Gaza broke out on Oct. 7. Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 hostages are believed to be still held in Gaza, after many were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.
The Palestinian death toll after nearly four months of war has reach 27,478 people, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, and rights groups have accused Israel of using disproportionate force.
More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people is now crammed into the town of Rafah on the border with Egypt and surrounding areas, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday.
A quarter of Gaza’s residents are starving and 85% of the population has been driven from their homes, with hundreds of thousands surviving in makeshift tent camps.
