By Mustafa Haboush
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Palestinian group Hamas said Tuesday that Palestinian factions have requested indirect negotiations through mediators to implement a UN Security Council resolution on a cease-fire in Gaza and prisoner exchange deal.
The Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution that supports a Gaza cease-fire proposal announced by US President Joe Biden with 14 votes in favor and only Russia abstaining.
On May 31, Biden said that Israel had presented a three-phase deal that would end hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in the coastal enclave. The plan includes a cease-fire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Israel insists that it will not end its attacks in Gaza until all its objectives are achieved, including eliminating Hamas and recovering hostages being held in the enclave, while Hamas says it will not accept the plan without a permanent cease-fire.
“The resistance factions, led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have asked mediators to conduct indirect negotiations to implement the Security Council resolution,” Ali Baraka, a member of Hamas' leadership abroad, told Anadolu.
Baraka emphasized that the resolution “needs practical and follow-up mechanisms.”
He stressed that the group supports any agreement that leads to a complete and permanent cease-fire, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a serious prisoner exchange deal.
On Tuesday evening, Egypt and Qatar received a response from Hamas and other Palestinian groups regarding the Biden-backed cease-fire and hostage swap proposal.
Israel has faced international condemnation for its continued sweeping offensive against Gaza, which has reduced wide swathes of the coastal territory to ruins amid shortages of necessities and ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries.
Nearly 37,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October, most of them women and children, and more than 84,800 others injured, according to local health authorities. Around 1,200 people were killed in a cross-border raid by Hamas on Oct. 7 last year that precipitated the current war.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio