Netanyahu 'unwilling' to reach Gaza ceasefire deal: Hamas

In a statement released on Monday, the Palestinian group said that the "criminal Netanyahu" was plunging his army and his entity into a futile war with no prospects.

"Netanyahu is skilled at thwarting one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement," Hamas said.

The “absolute victory” that Netanyahu is promoting is a major illusion intended to cover up a resounding defeat on the ground [in Gaza] and in politics, it added.

Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree to a temporary halt to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has been going on since October 7, 2023.

Zionist regime’s refusal to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip has hampered indirect ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and the Israeli regime.

Both Hamas and Zionist regime have announced that 10 living captives, taken during Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, would be released if an agreement for a 60-day ceasefire were reached.

But Zionist regime’s refusal to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza is holding back progress on securing an agreement.

Hamas has said it wants a complete withdrawal of Zionist troops from Gaza, which is home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians.

Elsewhere in the Monday statement, Hamas said resistance fighters were now "waging a war of attrition that surprises the enemy daily with innovative field tactics, causing it to lose the initiative and confuse its calculations, despite its superior firepower and air superiority."

"The longer the war continues, the more the occupation army sinks into the shifting sands of Gaza and becomes more vulnerable to the resistance’s qualitative strikes."

Zionist regime’s reserve major-general Yitzhak Brik recently told the Hebrew-language Maariv daily that Hamas had regained its pre-war strength, contradicting the Zionist regime’s military’s accounts of progress in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Brik called the reality on the ground for Israeli soldiers “grim”. He further pointed out that Hamas now numbers about 40,000 resistance fighters, similar to its strength before the Israeli aggression began in Gaza.

Palestinian resistance fighters in recent days have killed and injured dozens of Zionist regime’s occupation forces in a series of ambushes, amid the regime’s escalated aggression on the besieged territory.