Author and Researcher: Heydar Alkhafaji
In recent weeks, Israel has received Hamas’s response to a proposal announced by US President Joe Biden at the end of May that includes the release of some 120 hostages held in Gaza and a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas is believed to have shown flexibility on some terms that would allow an agreement to be reached for the current status. Hamas has said any deal must end the nearly nine-month-old war and achieve a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
For its part, Israel maintains that it will only accept temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas is eliminated.
While Netanyahu’s office issued a statement stressing that the war will not end unless all its goals are achieved, Hamas welcomed Biden’s statements, saying that it considers his words on stopping the war, withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, rebuilding it, and exchanging prisoners positive.
What Biden referred to as the Israel plan to reach an agreement, and the reaction of the Israeli government to Netanyahu reflects a paradox, as the Netanyahu government should have taken a position in support of Biden’s proposals, but the issue was reversed.
This contradiction and ambiguity in Netanyahu’s position has at times plunged the media and social network into an Israeli situation that is confusing and shocking for Israeli society, as well as raising various questions to the point that some Israelis. Especially among the extreme right, who have accused Netanyahu several times of colluding and transgressing his partners, stating that he was planning to end the war without their knowledge or that of Israeli society.
In this regard, some considered the statement from Netanyahu’s office as a political game that does not reflect reality, while others considered Biden’s statements and his repeated emphasis on the end of the war without any reference to the political future of the Gaza Strip as dramatic statements that signify acceptance of Hamas remaining in power after the war.
The article in Arabic: هل سيكون هناك وقف لإطلاق النار في غزة؟