CAIRO: Hamas fighters holed up in the Israeli-held Rafah area of Gaza would surrender their arms in exchange for passage to other areas of the enclave under a proposal to resolve an issue seen as a risk to the month-old truce, according to two sources familiar with the talks.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the proposed deal for some 200 fighters would be a test for a broader process to disarm Hamas forces across Gaza.
Since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10, the Rafah area has been the scene of at least two attacks on Israeli forces which Israel has blamed on Hamas; the militant group has denied responsibility.
Egyptian mediators have proposed that, in exchange for safe passage, fighters still in Rafah surrender their arms to Egypt and give details of tunnels there so they can be destroyed, one of the sources, an Egyptian security official, said.
Israel and Hamas have yet to publicly accept mediators’ proposals, the two sources said. A third confirmed that talks on the issue were underway.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the accounts; Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, declined to comment.
The attacks in Rafah spiralled into some of the worst violence since the ceasefire took hold, with three Israeli soldiers killed, prompting Israeli retaliation that killed dozens of Palestinians.
Two of the sources said the Hamas fighters in Rafah, which the group’s armed wing has said have been out of contact since March, might be unaware a ceasefire was in place. One of them added that getting the fighters out served the interest of safeguarding the truce.
The sources did not say how many Hamas fighters might be holed up in the Rafah area.
The ceasefire is the first part of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war.
The militant group has released the last 20 living hostages seized in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners; Israeli troops have withdrawn from western areas of Gaza, where Hamas remains in control.
Details of the next phase of Trump’s plan, which requires Hamas to disarm and surrender control of Gaza, have yet to be agreed. The plan foresees Gaza being governed by a technocratic Palestinian committee with international supervision, and the deployment of an international force.
Witkoff, one of the US negotiators on the plan, said work to stand up an international security force would be finished in the next three weeks and that would be the moment for Hamas to decommission its fighters and demilitarize the strip.
“We may see the model of what we’re trying to do (across Gaza)... with these 200 fighters who are trapped in Rafah, and whether they’re going to be able to raise their hands, walk out, turn over their weapons,” Witkoff said at a business conference in Florida. “And so this will be one of the tests.”
Since the ceasefire, Hamas has also handed over the bodies of 22 of 28 deceased hostages. Hamas has said the devastation in Gaza has made locating the bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.
Israel has released to Gaza the bodies of 285 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Hamas-led militants seized 251 hostages in the October 7 attacks, and killed another 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 69,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say — 241 of them killed since the ceasefire took hold.
Mediators propose deal to get Hamas fighters out of Gaza’s Israeli zone, sources say
https://arab.news/ybec3
Mediators propose deal to get Hamas fighters out of Gaza’s Israeli zone, sources say
- Witkoff said the proposed deal for some 200 fighters would be a test for a broader process to disarm Hamas forces across Gaza
- Egyptian mediators have proposed that, in exchange for safe passage, fighters still in Rafah surrender their arms to Egypt and give details of tunnels there so they can be destroyed
Arab, Muslim countries slam US ambassador’s remarks on Israel’s right to Middle East land
- The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory”
JERUSALEM: Arab and Islamic countries issued a joint condemnation on Sunday of remarks by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of far-right commentator and Israel critic Tucker Carlson.
In an episode released Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the river Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
In response, Huckabee said: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
When pressed, however, he continued that Israel was “not asking to take all of that,” adding: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”
The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments — alongside three major regional organizations — issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory.”
The statement, released by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry, was signed by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and the State of Palestine, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
They said the comments contravene the UN Charter and efforts to de-escalate the Gaza war and advance a political horizon for a comprehensive settlement.
Iran joined the chorus with its foreign ministry accusing Huckabee on X of revealing “American active complicity” in what it called Israel’s “expansionist wars of aggression” against Palestinians.
Earlier, several Arab states had issued unilateral condemnations.
Saudi Arabia described the ambassador’s words as “reckless” and “irresponsible,” while Jordan said it was “an assault on the sovereignty of the countries of the region.”
Kuwait decried what it called a “flagrant violation of the principles of international law,” while Oman said the comments “threatened the prospects for peace” and stability in the region.
Egypt’s foreign ministry reaffirmed “that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory or any other Arab lands.”
The Palestinian Authority said on X that Huckabee’s words “contradict US President Donald Trump’s rejection of (Israel) annexing the West Bank.”
On Saturday, Huckabee published two posts on X further clarifying his position on other topics touched upon in the interview, but did not address his remark about the biblical verse.
The speaker of the Israeli parliament, Amir Ohana, praised Huckabee on X for his general pro-Israel stance in the interview, and accused Carlson of “falsehoods and manipulations.”
Carlson has recently found himself facing accusations of antisemitism, particularly following a lengthy, uncritical interview with self-described white nationalist Nick Fuentes — a figure who has praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust and branded American Jews as disloyal.
