GAZA CITY, Palestine
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry has been among figures who proposed a truce between three and five years between the Gaza Strip and Israel, a senior member of Palestinian faction Hamas said Sunday.
Hossam Badran added that the proposed truce would be in return for lifting a blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip since 2007, establishing a seaport for the Palestinian territory and putting an end to pressures on it.
"Hamas has not responded to the proposed truce yet," Badran told The Anadolu Agency. "This is an issue of all the Palestinian people and Hamas cannot solely decide on it," he added.
He noted that Gaza could not accept to solve its problems away from the rest of Palestine.
Another senior Hamas member, meanwhile, said some European countries also proposed the truce.
"Hamas is still considering this proposal," Bassim Naim said, noting that none of the main parties to the proposed truce had accepted it yet.
Earlier on Sunday, Hamas deputy chief Ismail Haniyeh said that his movement did not mind hammering out a five-year truce with Israel.
Haniyeh added that Hamas did not mind this truce, provided that it did not give Israel the chance to control the West Bank, which is already occupied by Israel.
"Some international parties have proposed a five-year truce between the resistance in the Gaza Strip and Israel," Haniyeh said during a meeting with some members of Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian faction, at his home on Sunday.
He added that the truce ought also to be approved at a national Palestinian level.
Earlier this month, Israel's "Walla" news website cited documents from western diplomatic sources, which, it said, showed that Hamas had proposed a five-year truce with Israel in return for lifting the ongoing blockade on the Gaza Strip.
In August of 2014, Israel signed a cease-fire deal with Palestinian factions following a devastating 51-day military onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.
The offensive left some 2,160 Palestinians – mostly civilians - dead and more than 11,000 injured, while thousands of homes across the coastal enclave were reduced to rubble.
