Hamas: Netanyahu keeps obstructing ceasefire agreement

The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas says the Israeli regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps stonewalling a potential agreement that could end the regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’ senior representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan made the remarks during a press conference in Beirut on Thursday.

“Netanyahu continues to obstruct reaching an agreement, showing no interest in releasing the Israeli prisoners,” he said.

Israel launched the war on October 7 last year following al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise operation by Gaza's resistance movements against the occupied territories, during which hundreds were taken captive. More than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the brutal military onslaught so far.

By the end of a six-day truce on November 30, 105 captives had been released by Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners had been freed by the Israeli regime.

Israel believes 130 captives still remain in Gaza, while there are roughly 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom have been detained without charge.

Hamdan went on to detail Tel Aviv’s dilatory tactics that have prevented conclusion of a ceasefire agreement.

“The occupation continues to prevaricate, making the negotiations go in circles, as the occupation still refuses our people and our legitimate resistance's demands for a comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal from the Strip, the return of displaced persons, and a real prisoner exchange,” he said.

The Hamas’ official, however, asserted, “What the occupation has failed to achieve through killing, criminality, and genocide war, it will not succeed in achieving through prolonging negotiations.”

Hamdan, meanwhile, described the war as “the largest, most horrific, and longest heinous crime in modern history.”

He decried the international community’s “incapacity” in the face of the Israeli atrocities, which “serves as a green light for committing more massacres.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Palestinian official pointed to the Israeli military’s recent killing of seven aid workers serving the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah.

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The atrocity further establishes that this regime is “rogue, detached from all humanitarian values,” he said.

Hamdan also lashed out at the regime over its recent terrorist attack on the consular section of Iran's Embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus, which killed seven members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

The attack, he said, amounted to “a blatant violation of international law, an infringement on state sovereignty.”

“The US administration alone bears responsibility for its support and partnership with the occupation in these crimes, destabilizing the security and stability of the region, and its consequences,” the Hamas’ official noted.

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Hamdan finally called for mass participation of the Palestinian people in International Quds Day rallies.

The day was so designated by Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic. It is marked annually across the world on the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. This year, the event falls on April 5.

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