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About 200 Hamas fighters are hiding in the Israeli-held territory of the Gaza Strip and are defying calls to surrender, casting doubt on the implementation of President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
The nearly month-old ceasefire has been hit twice by airstrikes launched by Israel in response to ambushes against its troops around the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which it blamed on Hamas. The Palestinian faction initially denied that any of its gunmen remained behind the “yellow line” over which Israeli forces had redeployed as part of the agreement, while Trump said “rogue elements” may be responsible.
Changing stance, Hamas said Sunday that Israel “takes full responsibility for the confrontation with our fighters in Rafah, who are defending themselves in the area under their control.”
It urged mediating countries trying to establish a lasting peace to “find a solution to ensure the continuity of the ceasefire and prevent the enemy from making weak pretexts for violating it.”
The Israeli military said dozens of gunmen were still in the Rafah area, where a network of Hamas tunnels still existed, an estimated several hundred of which were hidden behind the yellow line. On the other hand, according to army estimates, Hamas and smaller Palestinian factions have about 15,000 gunmen.
Under the first phase of Trump’s agreement, Hamas was to return the last of its hostages to Gaza within 72 hours, while Israel vowed to increase the level of humanitarian aid supplies. None of the conditions were met; Hamas still has the remains of five hostages and said it would hand over one body on Sunday.
Big questions hang over the second phase, which requires Hamas to disarm and hand over power to an interim administration of foreign-monitored Palestinian technocrats. Hamas denies this, prompting threats from Israel to resume attacks on Gaza, which have killed thousands in the coastal enclave.
The prospect of confronting Palestinians still armed with guns could threaten the vision of an international peacekeeping force for Gaza.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the agreement’s promise of amnesty for Hamas members who lay down their arms and commit to peaceful coexistence with Israel could now be applied in microcosm.
“We can see this model of what we’re trying to do here, or what we intend to do here, with these 200 fighters who are stuck in Rafah, and whether they will be able to raise their hands, get out, hand in their weapons,” Witkoff said at a conference in Florida last week.
Trump’s son-in-law Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to visit Israel on Monday, local media reported.
However, the warring parties seemed dejected.
“Israel should know that the concept of surrender and handing itself over does not exist in the dictionary of the al-Qassam Brigades,” Hamas said in the statement, referring to its armed wing.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Kan radio on Sunday that the Rafah gunmen “should either be eliminated or come out wearing only underpants and carrying a white flag.”
The US plan also offers migration to demilitarized Hamas members. This has led to speculation in Israel that the gunmen may be given safe passage into the Hamas-controlled part of the Gaza Strip – perhaps in exchange for the early handover of the hostage remains. The body of a soldier killed in Gaza in 2014 was to be returned on Sunday to a base in Rafah, according to Hamas.
With the help of Fadwa Hodali.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
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