US envoy says Hamas response to ceasefire proposal 'unacceptable'

Hamas announced on Saturday that it had replied to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal, but Washington's main negotiator criticised the response as "totally unacceptable".

The Palestinian armed group said its response was positive while emphasising the need for a permanent ceasefire, which Israel has long refused to agree to.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed US envoy Steve Witkoff's assessment that the response was "unacceptable", accusing Hamas of clinging "to its rejectionism".

Israel on Friday warned Hamas to either accept the deal and free the captives held in Gaza "or be annihilated".

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said it had "submitted its response... to the mediating parties".

"As part of this agreement, 10 living prisoners of the occupation held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of 18 bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners," it added.

A source within the group's political bureau said it had offered "a positive response to Witkoff, but with emphasis on guaranteeing a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal" from the Gaza Strip.

Witkoff said Hamas's response was "totally unacceptable and only takes us backward", urging the group to "accept the framework proposal we put forward".

"That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families and in which we can have... substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire," he added in a post on X.

Hamas alleges negotiation 'bias'

A member of Hamas's political bureau, Bassem Naim, later told AFP the group "responded positively and responsibly" to Witkoff's proposal.

He alleged there was a "complete bias" in the negotiating process in favour of Israel, accusing it of disagreeing with "provisions we had agreed upon" earlier with the US envoy.

Hamas has long maintained that any deal should lay out a pathway to a permanent end to the war.

Israel has balked at that prospect, insisting on the need to destroy the group to prevent a repeat of the October 2023 attack that sparked the war.

"While Israel has agreed to the updated Witkoff framework for the release of our hostages, Hamas continues to cling to its rejectionism," Netanyahu's office said in a statement, adding the group's reply was "unacceptable and sets the process back".

"Israel will continue its efforts to bring our hostages home and to defeat Hamas."

A breakthrough in negotiations has been elusive ever since Israel abandoned the previous ceasefire on 18 March, when it resumed its onslaught on Gaza.

US President Donald Trump had said on Friday that the parties were "very close to an agreement".

Two sources close to the negotiations said Witkoff's proposal involved a 60-day truce, potentially extendable to 70 days.

It would include the release of five living hostages and nine bodies in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners during the first week, followed by a second exchange the following week, the sources said.

Gaza 'hungriest place on Earth'

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's 7 October, 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

"After 603 days of war, we wish to remind everyone that war is a means, not an end in itself," the main group representing the hostages' families said in a statement.

Israeli society was "united around one consensus", bringing home all the remaining hostages "even at the cost of ending the war", the Hostages and Missing Families Forum added.

Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.

A spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency has called the territory "the hungriest place on Earth".

Aid is only trickling into Gaza after the partial lifting by Israel of an 11-week total blockade, and the UN has recently reported looting of its trucks and warehouses.

The World Food Programme has called on Israel "to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster", saying desperation was "contributing to rising insecurity".

The Gaza-based health ministry said on Sunday that at least 4,149 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its offensive, taking the war's overall toll to 54,418, mostly civilians.

(AFP and TNA staff)