SAEDNEWS: A senior leader of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has strongly denounced Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his incessant efforts at stymying underway negotiations aimed at ending the Gaza Strip’s plight.
Speaking on Saturday, Mahmoud Mardawi said the Israeli premier continued to deliberately obstruct the path to a negotiated agreement, saying repeated acts of bad faith had derailed progress.
Mardawi said negotiations remained “the only way to reach an agreement,” but added that Netanyahu was “unable to pass any agreement acceptable to both sides.”
Instead, he said, the prime minister chose to hide “behind a false alarm,” pursuing policies that undermined talks.
“For the first time, Netanyahu alone will bear full responsibility for the failure of negotiations and the consequences of his policies and actions,” the resistance official said.
Amid the deliberate procrastination, there are currently no negotiation sessions underway in either Doha or Cairo, the Qatari and Egyptian capitals that have undertaken to host talks on a potential ceasefire, Mardawi stated.
His remarks echoed those by numerous other Palestinian officials, regional figures, and even the regime’s own authorities, including the former head of its Shin Bet spy agency, concerning the Israeli regime’s dilatory tactics.
The regime, meanwhile, keeps tearing away at Gaza with its October 2023-present war of genocide that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 61,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Tel Aviv is simultaneously leading a policy of mass starvation against the territory, which has seen it almost completely block the entry of vital items into the coastal sliver.
Talks stalled amid US meddling
The Hamas official also said the last round of talks in Doha had come close to producing an agreement until, what he described as, an “American coup” halted progress.
He noted that the group’s most recent proposal was received positively by Qatar, Egypt and even the Israeli delegation present in Doha.
The shift came, he said, when a US envoy intervened, delivering a position that “contradicted the positive atmosphere” and effectively ended hopes for a breakthrough.
Hamas, however, remains in “daily and continuous contact” with mediators in an effort to end the war, the official remarked.
Occupation plan ‘no surprise’
Mardawi also dismissed reports about Netanyahu’s plan to fully occupy the entire Gaza as unsurprising, arguing that the assault had never relied on any justification.
“This occupation does not need a pretext to continue its genocidal war and crimes against our people.”
