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Hamas Says It Accepts UN-Backed Gaza Truce Plan, US Cites ‘Hopeful Sign’ 

Palestinian boys transport water containers past buildings destroyed during previous Israeli bombardment, in Gaza City on June 10, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinian boys transport water containers past buildings destroyed during previous Israeli bombardment, in Gaza City on June 10, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Says It Accepts UN-Backed Gaza Truce Plan, US Cites ‘Hopeful Sign’ 

Palestinian boys transport water containers past buildings destroyed during previous Israeli bombardment, in Gaza City on June 10, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinian boys transport water containers past buildings destroyed during previous Israeli bombardment, in Gaza City on June 10, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas accepts a UN resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian armed group said on Tuesday in what the US Secretary of State called "a hopeful sign". 

Conversations on plans for Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends will continue on Tuesday afternoon and in the next couple of days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv after talks with Israeli leaders. "It's imperative that we have these plans." 

Blinken met Israeli officials on Tuesday in a push to end the eight-month-old Israeli air and ground war against Hamas that has devastated Gaza, a day after President Joe Biden's proposal for a truce was approved by the UN Security Council. 

Ahead of Blinken's trip, Israel and Hamas both repeated hardline positions that have undermined previous mediation to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war. 

On Tuesday, however, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who is based outside Gaza, said it accepted the ceasefire resolution and was ready to negotiate over the details. It was up to Washington to ensure that Israel abides by it, he added. 

He said Hamas accepted the formula stipulating the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a swap of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. 

"The US administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the UN Security Council resolution," Abu Zuhri told Reuters. 

Blinken said the Hamas statement was "a hopeful sign" but definitive word was still needed from the Hamas leadership inside Israeli-besieged Gaza. "That's what counts, and that's what we don't have yet." 

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen stormed into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. 

Israel's retaliatory air and ground blitz in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry has said, and reduced most of the narrow, coastal enclave to wasteland, with malnutrition widespread. 

Biden's proposal envisages a ceasefire and release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war. 

Israel has said it will agree only to temporary pauses in the war until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas has countered it will not accept a deal that does not guarantee the war will end. 

Blinken, speaking to reporters before departing for neighboring Jordan, also said his talks were also addressing day-after plans for Gaza, including security, governance, and rebuilding the densely populated enclave. 

"We've been doing that in consultation with many partners throughout the region. Those conversations will continue...it's imperative that we have these plans," he said. 

In the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinians reacted cautiously to the Security Council vote, fearing it could prove yet another ceasefire initiative that would prove fruitless. 

"We will believe it only when we see it," said Shaban Abdel-Raouf, 47, a displaced family of five sheltering in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, a frequent target of Israeli firepower. 

"When they tell us to pack our belongings and prepare to go back to Gaza City, we will know it is true," he told Reuters via a chat app. 

FEARS OF MAJOR ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH WAR 

In his visit, his eighth to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October, Blinken also hoped to counter rising violence between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah after both signaled readiness for a major spillover conflict. 

On Monday, Blinken had talks in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, an important mediator in the Gaza war, in Cairo before proceeding to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. 

Blinken had consultations on Tuesday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, centrist ex-military chief Benny Gantz - who quit Israel's war cabinet on Sunday over what he said was Netanyahu's failure to outline a plan for the war's end - as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid. 

The US State Department said Blinken discussed Biden's truce proposal with Gantz and reiterated that it would advance Israel's security interests, bring hostages home and raise the chances of restoring calm along Israel's border with Lebanon. 

The US is Israel's closest ally and biggest arms supplier, though it has become sharply critical of the high civilian death toll, vast destruction and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the Israeli military campaign. 

The war raged on in Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli forces stepped up strikes on its southern city of Rafah a day after four soldiers were killed in an ambush claimed by Hamas. 

Israeli Army Radio said the soldiers died in an explosion in a building in Rafah's Shaboura district. Hamas said it had ambushed troops by detonating explosives planted in the building. 

HOPES FOR CEASEFIRE REPEATEDLY DASHED 

Biden has repeatedly declared that ceasefires were close over the past several months, but there has been only one, week-long truce, in November, when over 100 hostages were freed in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. 

Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas in a commando raid into a crowded urban refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday during which 274 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's health authorities. 

There are over 100 hostages left in the coastal enclave, according to Israeli tallies, including at least 40 whom Israeli authorities have declared dead in absentia.  

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Arab World

Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
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Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)

Israel is considering options to respond to repeated attacks fired from Yemen in the past few days, the latest of which was a Houthi missile strike that injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv.
But military experts say Israel should first consider an intelligence plan for confronting the new front after it faced significant difficulties in both defending against and responding to the Houthi attacks.
On Saturday morning, Houthis launched a missile that triggered sirens throughout central Israel at 3:44 am. It was the second attack since Thursday.
Israel's military said the projectile landed in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area, adding that attempts to intercept a missile from Yemen failed.
“The incident is still being thoroughly investigated,” the army said, adding that following initial investigations by the Israeli Air Force and Home Front Command, “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, both regarding interception and early warning.”
Israeli military experts say the recent Houthi attacks have revealed serious security gaps in Israel's air defense systems.
“The pressing question now is why none of the other of Israel’s air defense layers managed to intercept the warhead,” wrote Yedioth Ahronoth's Ron Ben-Yishai. “The likely explanation is the late detection and the flat trajectory, which prevented the operation of all available defense apparatus.”
He said these incidents might expose a critical vulnerability in the army’s air defense system protecting Israel’s civilian and military home front.
According to Ben-Yishai, two main reasons might explain Saturday’s interception failure.
The first is that the missile was launched in a “flattened” ballistic trajectory, possibly from an unexpected direction.
As a result, Israeli defenses may not have identified it in time, leading to its late discovery and insufficient time for interceptors to operate.
He said the second, and more likely scenario is that Iran has developed a maneuverable warhead.
Such a warhead separates from the missile during the final third of its trajectory and maneuvers mid-flight—executing pre-programmed course changes—to hit its designated target, he wrote.
And while Israel has launched initial investigations into the failure of Israeli defense systems to intercept the missiles, it is now examining the nature, date and location of its response.
When Houthis launched their first missile attack on Israel last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned them, saying, “The Houthis will learn the hard way.”
But Israeli political analyst Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the Maariv newspaper that Israel should look at reality with open eyes and say out loud that it cannot deal with the Houthi threat from Yemen, and has failed to face them.
Last Thursday, 14 Israeli Air Force fighter jets, alongside refuelers and spy planes, flew some 2,000 kilometers and dropped over 60 munitions on Houthi “military targets” along Yemen’s western coast and near the capital Sanaa.
The targets included fuel and oil depots, two power stations, and eight tugboats used at the Houthi-controlled ports.
But the Maariv newspaper warned about the increasing involvement of Iran in supporting the Houthi forces.
“Iran has invested more in the Houthis in recent weeks following the collapse of the Shiite axis, making the Houthi movement a leader of this axis,” the newspaper noted.
Underscoring the failures of Israel’s air defense systems, Maariv said the “Arrow” missile defense system, Israel's main line of defense against ballistic missiles, had failed four times in a row to intercept missiles, including three launched from Yemen and one from Lebanon.
Yedioth Ahronoth's Ben-Yishai also warned that the threat posed by maneuvering warheads on Iran's heavy, long-range missiles would become existential for Israel should Iran succeed in developing nuclear warheads for these missiles.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 said that in recent months, the Middle East has changed beyond recognition.
The channel said that for the first time in more than half a century, a direct and threat-free air corridor has been opened to Iran through the Middle East. Israel will benefit from this corridor to launch almost daily attacks on the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, it said.
Channel 12 also reported that according to the Israeli military, the new threat-free corridor will help Israel launch a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
“From Israel's perspective, the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the Iranian ring of fire are changing the balance of power in the Middle East,” the report added.