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Hamas wants guarantees Israel won’t resume war after Gaza captives freed
Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’s political office in Lebanon, has told The Associated Press (AP) news agency that the Palestinian organisation wants written guarantees from mediators that Israel will not return to war after the first group of Israeli captives held in Gaza is released.
Both sides have agreed on a general framework for a ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that any agreement “must allow Israel to return to fighting until all the objectives of the war are achieved”, which includes the destruction of Hamas.
Hamas insists that “negotiations should continue for a permanent ceasefire until a permanent ceasefire is reached”, as opposed to the wording in the current ceasefire proposal, under which the ceasefire should continue as long as negotiations continue.
“Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression” at any time, Abdul-Hadi told the AP. “We want something in writing to ensure that negotiations continue … in order to reach a permanent ceasefire,” he said.
Palestinian fighters in better position ‘than in early days of war’, says Hamas official
More from the AP interview with Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’s political office in Lebanon:
Abdul-Hadi said the “military situation is very solid for the resistance and is better than the early days of the war”, while denying reports that Hamas leaders inside the war-torn territory had exerted pressure on leaders outside to accept the current ceasefire proposal due to the pressure of Israeli military attacks on the Palestinian enclave.
He also said that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the governing party in Gaza after the war.
The form of future governance in Gaza, Abdul-Hadi said, will be “a Palestinian matter that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people” and is not part of the current ceasefire talks.
“We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase,” he said. “We want to have a partnership and national consensus.”
A meeting between Hamas and its main rival, Fatah, is expected to take place in China later this month after being postponed last month, he said.
Argentina designates Hamas a terrorist organisation
Argentina has designated Hamas a “terrorist organisation” and ordered a freeze on all of the group’s financial assets, in a largely symbolic move by the country’s far-right President Javier Milei, as he seeks to align more closely to the US and Israel.
Announcing the decision, Milei’s office cited the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 people taken captive.
“Argentina must once again align itself with Western civilization,” Milei’s office said.
On his first state visit as president in February, Milei flew to Jerusalem in a show of support for the Israeli government and promised to move his nation’s embassy to the contested capital – drawing praise from Netanyahu and criticism from Palestinians.
Although raised a Roman Catholic, Milei says he has a deep spiritual connection with Judaism. He is a staunch supporter of Israel, and compared the October 7 attacks to the Holocaust, describing them as “21st-century Nazism”.
I was still living in the Netherlands when the now King of the Netherlands married Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, daughter of a war criminal in Argentina.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jorge-zorreguieta-dirty-war-argentina-queen-maxima-netherlands-junta-videla-isabel-peron-a7895981.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/argentina-white-european-racism-history
Argentina has long taken pride in its European heritage. The mass migration of 7 million Europeans, mostly Spanish and Italian, between 1850 and 1950, created a racial profile many Argentinians feel distinguishes their country from the rest of Latin America even today.
It fits, outlier to the 'Global South', wants to be like Europe.
