Hamas: Netanyahu seeks to undermine truce prospects by threatening to attack Rafah

A top Hamas official accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Friday of issuing statements intended to torpedo prospects for a truce in the nearly seven-month war in Gaza.

Hossam Badran told AFP that Hamas was in the process of conducting internal dialogues within its leadership and with allied militant groups before negotiators return to Cairo to continue negotiations towards a truce.

But he warned that Netanyahu’s repeated statements insisting he will send troops into the territory’s far southern city of Rafah were calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement.”

“Netanyahu was the obstructionist in all previous rounds of dialogue and previous negotiations, and it is clear that he still is,” he said in a telephone interview.

“He is not interested in reaching an agreement, and therefore he says words in the media to thwart these current efforts.”


AFP