A Hamas official says the group has softened its demands for a ceasefire with Israel.
Spokesman Ghazi Hamad says Hamas is now prepared for a partial truce that would only include the Gaza Strip. Hamad says the proposal has been relayed to Egyptian mediators.
This is a dramatic departure for Hamas. The group previously has demanded the West Bank be included in any deal.
In return, Hamas wants Israel and Egypt to open their trade and passenger crossings with Gaza, which have been sealed since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza last June.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s state-run newspaper al-Ahram said yesterday that Egyptian negotiators had reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on a truce with Israel.
“Egypt has reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on the methods of achieving a period of calm with the Israelis, and [intelligence chief] Omar Suleiman will relay the results of these contacts and the principles of the agreement to Israel to reach a final agreement,” the paper said.
Al-Ahram attributed the information to “an informed source,” but the comments came in the context of comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to reporters accompanying him on a visit to France.
In related news, Israel said yesterday that a mission by former US president Jimmy Carter to work out a ceasefire with Hamas had failed.
Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter’s meetings over the weekend with Hamas officials in Damascus. Gilad told Israel’s Army Radio that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal had not budged in his demands, and thus Carter had failed.
In other news, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in the northern part of the Gaza Strip yesterday near the Erez border crossing with Israel, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.
Islamic Jihad and a militant group belonging to the Fatah faction said three of their fighters were killed while trying to attack an army base near the crossing.
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
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