Hamas dismisses US 'truce deal' comment

Official says facing American diktats

DOHA:

A senior Hamas official on Saturday dismissed optimistic talk by US President Joe Biden that a Gaza truce is nearer after negotiations in the Gulf emirate of Qatar.

"To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion," Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. "We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats."

He was responding to Biden's comment Friday that "We are closer than we have ever been."

Biden spoke after two days of talks in Qatar where Washington tried to bridge differences between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas which have been at war for more than 10 months in the Gaza Strip.

Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded.

But the stakes have risen significantly since the late July killings in quick succession of Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Their deaths prompted promises of retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah and fears of a wider Middle East war.

Trying to avert a broader conflict, Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the region to push for a Gaza deal which they say could help avert a wider conflagration.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed back to the region this weekend in a bid to help seal a deal.

Hamas officials have objected to "new conditions" from Israel in the latest proposal drawn up by Washington.

Israel's delegation expressed "cautious optimism" about the prospects for an agreement after returning from Doha, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Saturday.

"There is hope that the heavy pressure on Hamas from the United States and mediators will lead to the removal of their opposition to the American proposal, potentially allowing a breakthrough in the negotiations," it said.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy urged all parties to "engage positively and flexibly" in the negotiations.

"We underline the importance of avoiding any escalatory action in the region which would undermine the prospect for peace," they added. "There is too much at stake."

As efforts towards a truce continued, so did the killing in Gaza and Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli air strike in the southern Nabatieh area killed 10 Syrians, including a woman and her two children.

The strike was among the deadliest in south Lebanon since the onset of near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah following the start of the Gaza war.

Israel's military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.

In Hamas-run Gaza, the civil defence authority said an Israeli air strike killed 15 people from a single Palestinian family. The deaths in Al-Zawaida helped push the Gaza health ministry's war death toll to 40,074.

"We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered," said Omar al-Dreemli, a relative.