Ahmed Asmar
10 March 2025•Update: 10 March 2025
ANKARA
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Monday that Israeli threats to resume the war on Gaza “will not work.”
"We affirm our full commitment to the ceasefire agreement, and to implementing what was agreed upon,” Hamas said in a statement.
“We are ready to immediately begin negotiations for the second phase,” it added. “The (Israeli) occupation continues to overturn the agreement, and refuses to begin the second phase, which reveals its intentions to evade and procrastinate."
The first six-week phase of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement ended in early March without Israel agreeing to move to the second phase or halt the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to extend the first phase of the prisoner exchange to secure the release of more Israeli captives without fulfilling military or humanitarian obligations outlined in the agreement, appeasing hardliners in his government.
Hamas, however, rejects this approach and insists that Israel abide by the ceasefire terms, urging mediators to push for immediate negotiations on the second phase, which includes a full Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war.
"Netanyahu is obstructing the implementation of the agreement for purely personal and partisan reasons, and he does not care about the release of the captives or the feelings of their families,” Hamas said.
It stressed that the ceasefire deal was brokered by mediators and witnessed by the world, “which requires obligating the occupation to implement it, as it is the only path to recovering the captives.”
The Palestinian group stressed that the Israeli threats and blackmailing “will not work.”
“There is no way but negotiations and commitment to the agreement, otherwise (Israel) is tampering with the fate of the captives,” it said.
Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza on Sunday, in the latest move to tighten a stifling blockade on the enclave despite the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
It followed an Israeli decision last week to stop humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, prompting warnings from local and human rights groups of a return to widespread hunger for the Palestinian population.
The ceasefire deal has been in place since January, pausing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 48,500 people, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
