A senior Israeli political official accused the Palestinian Hamas movement on Saturday of obstructing attempts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza by rejecting a plan for a 60-day ceasefire.
The official said, "Hamas rejected the Qatari proposal, is placing obstacles, refusing to make concessions, and accompanying the talks with a psychological warfare campaign aimed at undermining the negotiations."
He added, according to Agence France-Presse, that Israel "has demonstrated its willingness to show flexibility in the negotiations."
While a new round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas began in Doha on Sunday, mediated by Qatar, the United States, and Egypt, in an effort to reach a truce in the war, the Israeli military continued its offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 20 Palestinians in new strikes, according to the Civil Defense.
A Palestinian source told Agence France-Presse that the Doha negotiations "are facing stumbling blocks and complex difficulties due to Israel's insistence on a map it presented on Friday, which calls for the redeployment and positioning of the Israeli army, not a withdrawal. The map includes keeping military forces on more than 40 percent of the Gaza Strip, a position Hamas rejects."
The source warned that the withdrawal map "aims to cram hundreds of thousands of displaced people into a part of the western Rafah area as a prelude to the displacement of citizens to Egypt or other countries, something Hamas rejects."
He stressed that the Hamas negotiating delegation "will not accept the Israeli maps presented because they represent a legitimacy for the reoccupation of nearly half of the Gaza Strip's area, turning the Gaza Strip into isolated areas without crossings or freedom of movement, like Nazi camps."
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An Israeli official accuses Hamas of undermining ceasefire negotiations in Gaza.