Hamas says it’s ready to begin talks on a ‘comprehensive’ deal to end Gaza war

GAZA CITY, Palestine/ISTANBUL

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Thursday that it is ready to immediately begin negotiations with Israel on a “comprehensive” deal to release all Israeli hostages in exchange for a complete ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.

“Partial agreements on Gaza serve only as political cover for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s agenda of continued war, genocide and starvation,” Khalil Al-Hayya, the head of Hamas in Gaza and the group’s chief negotiator, said in a televised address broadcast on its official digital platforms.

He affirmed Hamas's readiness for a full-scale agreement.

“We are ready to immediately engage in comprehensive package negotiations for the release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for an agreed number of our prisoners held by the occupation, a complete end to the war, full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the start of reconstruction, and the lifting of the blockade.”

Al-Hayya welcomed remarks by Adam Boehler, the US special envoy for hostage affairs, who earlier Thursday expressed support for ending both the hostage issue and the war as a single package.

Boehler had said in an interview with Al Jazeera: “I can tell you that the fighting would end immediately, immediately if hostages are released.”

Al-Hayya also called for immediate international intervention to end the Israeli blockade on Gaza, warning that “over two million people in Gaza are being subjected to genocide by starvation.”

He noted that Hamas had accepted a mediator proposal at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on March 29, but Netanyahu later rejected it and responded with what Al-Hayya described as “unreasonable conditions that would not lead to a ceasefire or a withdrawal from Gaza.”

More than 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November 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.