OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
4:05 PM – Wednesday, August 14, 2024
According to a senior Hamas official, the Palestinian terrorist organization is “losing faith” in U.S. diplomacy to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and will only take part in negotiations if they center on carrying out a specific plan that U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled in May.
Back in May, conservative online users took to social media platforms to express their frustration with the growing Israel-Hamas conflict and Biden’s purported willingness to “satisfy Hamas’ demands.”
“You don’t negotiate with terrorists, Joe, do you even understand what you’re doing?” said one X (Twitter) user on the social platform.
Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ politburo, spoke with AP News and other Middle Eastern correspondents on Tuesday, detailing his understanding of the matter.
“We have informed the mediators that… any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new,” Hamdan said. “Otherwise, Hamas finds no reason to participate.”
Biden’s outlined plan and speech were craftily described by U.S. officials in his administration as an “Israeli proposal,” and Hamas initially accepted it in theory. However, Israel declared that Biden’s remarks did not really align with their true proposal. Later, both parties offered revisions, which prompted one to accuse the other of obstructing a settlement.
Hamdan claims that Israel is not acting in good faith, adding that the Islamist terrorist organization does not believe that the U.S. will put pressure on Israel to reach an agreement.
The Times of Israel outlet reported that documents Hamdan provided, that were later verified as genuine, showed how Hamas tried on multiple occasions to engage other powers in the negotiations, such as Russia, Turkey, and the UN, but Israel’s responses were limited to the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar, the mediators that were already in place.
Hamdan went on to claim that Israel “either sent a non-voting delegation [to the negotiations] or changed delegations from one round to another, so we would start again, or it has imposed new conditions.”
Additionally, Hamdan admits to “some difficulties” and communication breakdowns with Yahya Sinwar, the current leader of Hamas, who is thought to be hiding deep under the Gaza Strip’s network of tunnels.
However, Hamdan is adamant that this won’t be a significant obstacle to the talks.
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