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Qatari and Egyptian negotiators recently told CNN that the new Hamas political leader will seriously negotiate to end this conflict that has lasted more than 10 months.
The new political leader of the Islamist Hamas movement Yahya Sinwar has expressed his desire to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, amid uncertainty over Israel's commitment to negotiations.
Qatari and Egyptian negotiators recently told CNN that Mr. Sinwar would seriously negotiate to end the conflict that has lasted more than 10 months.
However, there are doubts about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's willingness to seriously negotiate a ceasefire, despite growing domestic and international pressure.
Israel has been accused of involvement in the assassinations of moderate Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and senior Hezbollah figures in Lebanon.
Most recently, on August 10, Israel bombed a school in Gaza, killing dozens of civilians.
More than 10 months of fierce fighting, the conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of more than 1,400 Israelis and nearly 40,000 Palestinians, while forcing hundreds of thousands of others to become homeless and lacking food and medicine.
Amid the increasingly complicated situation in the Middle East, Qatar, Egypt and the US issued a joint statement calling on Israel and Hamas to restart negotiations on August 15 in Doha (Qatar) or Cairo (Egypt) to narrow the differences.
However, representatives of the Hamas movement said on August 11 that they had no plans to send a delegation to participate in new negotiations because they believed they could not bring about a breakthrough.
Instead, the group called on the mediators to present a plan to implement the agreed proposals by July 2, 2024, based on US President Joe Biden's vision and the UN Security Council resolution, rather than launching further rounds of negotiations or new proposals.
The US State Department said on August 12 that it hoped the Gaza peace talks would proceed as planned, and that it believed a ceasefire was still possible even if Hamas did not send a delegation to the new round of talks in Doha.
President Biden also recently said that a ceasefire agreement could be reached before his term ends in January 2025, according to which Washington could pressure Tel Aviv to end the conflict.
Axios reported that on August 13, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit the Middle East amid rising tensions in the region.
According to the plan, Mr. Blinken will stop in Qatar, Egypt, Israel and possibly Iran.
TB (according to VNA)