After more than a week, Hamas responded to a framework ceasefire proposal formulated in Paris on January 28 by Israeli, American, Qatari and Egyptian officials, and conveyed to Hamas by Qatar. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the terror group’s demands, among which includes the release of 1,500 prisoners from Israeli jails, a third of whom it wanted to select from a list of Palestinians serving life sentences.
“Surrendering to Hamas’ delusional demands that we heard now not only won’t lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a nationally televised evening news conference.
“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” he said, adding that the operation would last months, not years. “There is no other solution.”
He ruled out any arrangement that leaves Hamas in control of any part of Gaza. He also said that Israel is the “only power” capable of guaranteeing security in the long term.
Foreign Desk News reports that Hamas is already returning to areas of Gaza that the Israeli military has recently withdrawn from.
Citing multiple witnesses and an unnamed official of the terror group, the Associated Press reported that uniformed and plainclothes personnel have taken up a presence near police stations, government offices, and Shifa Hospital.
A Hamas associate told AP that, “The return of the police marks an attempt to restore order in the devastated city after the Israeli forces withdrew from northern Gaza last month.”
