Fate of Gaza ceasefire uncertain as Egypt and Qatar try to break Israel-Hamas deadlock

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Gaza truce mediators Egypt and Qatar are asking Israel for more time to resolve a stand-off with Hamas over extending the ceasefire in the war-battered territory, sources familiar with the matter have told The National.

They said Hamas has rejected Israel's request to extend the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire that expires on Saturday and is demanding instead that Israel immediately enters negotiations on the second phase, which had been due to begin early in February.

Hamas on Saturday repeated its rejection of Israel's "formulation" of extending the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. The group's spokesperson Hazem Qassem also told Al Araby TV there were currently no talks on the second phase.

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, negotiations on the second phase were supposed to produce an agreement on a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as well as a permanent ceasefire.

The sources said Israel had offered instead to extend the ceasefire while Hamas releases the remaining 59 hostages still held captive in Gaza and to release more imprisoned Palestinians than previously agreed if the militant group forgoes the second and third phases of the deal.

"Israel has no intention to enter negotiations on the second phase because it has no intention to withdraw from Gaza or end the war before it's satisfied that Hamas has been fully eradicated," said one of the sources. "Egyptian and Qatari mediators asked Israel to give them a few days to find a way out of the deadlock."

Ayman Shanaa, a member of the political leadership of Hamas in Lebanon, sounded a defiant note in the face of Israel's repeated vows to dismantle the group.

"The Palestinian resistance will not surrender its weapons, but will instead develop them. Our battle with this enemy is still long," he told The National.

Under the terms of the ceasefire that went into effect on January 19, Hamas released 33 hostages in exchange for about 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons during the first phase.

The deadlock over entering the second phase of the deal comes just days before Egypt hosts an emergency Arab summit to discuss an alternative to US President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Gaza's 2.3 million residents in Egypt and Jordan before the United States takes over the territory and develops it into the "Riviera of the Middle East".

Mr Trump's vision for the postwar reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian territory has been globally rejected, with international rights groups saying it amounts to ethnic cleansing, a war crime.

A Palestinian political source in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw in Mr Trump's proposals, which he has warmly welcomed, an opportunity to evade the requirements of the deal.

The Arab summit is also expected to embrace an Arab Gaza reconstruction plan that provides for Gazans to remain in the coastal enclave while homes and infrastructure are rebuilt. However, the plan can only be implemented if there is a permanent ceasefire.

More than 48,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and more than twice that number injured during 15 months of Israel's military offensive against Hamas, according to Gaza authorities. The war, sparked by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, has displaced the majority of Gaza's residents and destroyed large swathes of the strip's built-up areas.