Hamas ‘ready’ for talks on phase two of Gaza ceasefire: Report

Two Hamas officials speaking on condition of anonymity are being quoted by AFP expressing the group’s readiness to start discussions on the second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza.

“Hamas has informed the mediators during ongoing communications and meetings held with Egyptian mediators last week in Cairo that we are ready to start the negotiations for the second phase,” one official said.

“We are waiting for the mediators to initiate the next round of negotiations,” the other said.

Netanyahu blows past ceasefire talks deadline to confer with Trump

A deadline to begin talks on extending Gaza’s ceasefire arrived Monday with the Israeli prime minister in Washington, silence from his office about when a negotiating team might engage with Hamas, and considerable uncertainty about what the next stage of the fragile truce will look like.

The ceasefire, in place for just over two weeks, is set to expire on March 1. Under the terms of the deal, talks on the next phase are supposed to begin no later than Monday.

But the Israeli government has yet to publicly unveil a negotiating team for the talks, let alone send them to Qatar or Egypt, where Hamas is sending a delegation this week. Hamas has not publicly commented on Monday’s deadline.

Delay in start of talks about extending ceasefire ‘terrifying’

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the Hadash party, says the apparent delay in the start of the talks about the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire is “a terrifying sign”.

“I’ve been saying since day one that Netanyahu and the thugs around him in the coalition and the government are not really interested in a ceasefire or saving the Israeli hostages – let alone saving the lives of thousands of Palestinians,” he told Al Jazeera from West Jerusalem.

“They are interested in two things: Netanyahu himself is interested, as usual, in his own good. That’s it. He wants to stay in power in order to stay out of prison. That’s the only thing he cares about, and it doesn’t matter for him if it comes at the expense of the lives of thousands and thousands of people, Palestinians and Israelis alike,” Cassif argued.

“And the thugs around him in the coalition, mainly those who are part of the fanatic, fascist parties, they are interested in using the human blood as a carpet for the Messiah. They truly believe that the continuation of the genocide in Gaza and more violence in the West Bank – as we saw just in the last few days – is part of their dream, which is in fact a nightmare. They believe that will bring the Messiah and the Third Temple, etc, and all this hogwash.

“They don’t care about human lives.”

Occupied West Bank refugee camps ‘in serious threat of total destruction’

We have some more lines from the interview with Knesset member Ofer Cassif:

“We saw in the last few days that both the refugee camp in Jenin and the refugee camp in Tulkarem are under a serious threat of total destruction and yet again another expulsion of Palestinian people from there,” he told Al Jazeera, saying this has nothing to do with security.

“I’m also afraid that this has been done on purpose by the Israeli government in order to foil the ceasefire in Gaza. That’s the reason I’m so worried,” Cassif added, appealing to countries in the region to not “leave behind your brothers and sisters in Palestine”.

“Don’t leave the Palestinians who’ve been butchered for more than one year by the Israeli government. That should have been stopped months ago,” he said. “That’s in the interest of everybody who is involved – obviously the Palestinians but also the Israelis.”

Jenin mayor likens Israeli military operation to war in Gaza

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/middleeast/jenin-mayor-israeli-military-operation-intl/index.html

The mayor of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, told CNN on Monday that the Israeli assault on the Jenin Refugee Camp was akin to the war in Gaza, saying it had destroyed 120 buildings and displaced 15,000 people.

“What has been happening in Jenin city and the refugee camp over the past two weeks is similar to that of Gaza but on a smaller scale,” Mohammad Jarrar said Monday. Hundreds of residential units make up the 120 destroyed buildings, he said, noting that the destruction had impacted thousands of families.

Jarrar described scenes of devastation amid a shortage of food, water and medication as services have been disrupted because of the operation. He added that displacement is expected to only further increase.


_{Israeli military members walk during an Israeli army operation in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, February 3}

Israel launched its operation two days after the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire began, dubbing it “Operation Iron Wall.”

The Israeli military said the operation was aimed at eliminating “terrorists and terror infrastructure” and “ensuring that terrorism does not return to the camp after the operation is over – the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”

More than 40 Palestinians have been killed across the West Bank by the Israeli military since the operation was launched, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which said that 25 of those people were from Jenin. Dozens more have been injured, the ministry said.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right nationalist who opposes the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, said in a January statement that security in the West Bank had been added to the country’s “war goals.”

Smotrich publicly toyed with quitting the Israeli government when the Gaza ceasefire was announced, but decided to stay in the cabinet after saying he had received assurances from Netanyahu on his commitment to continue Israel’s military operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

_{Smoke rises following an explosion detonated by the Israeli army, which said it was destroying buildings used by Palestinian militants in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.}

Jarrar told CNN that the military operation on Jenin was “political,” noting the desire of some in Israeli government to annex the West Bank and encourage Palestinians to emigrate from the territory.

The mayor said that schools might be opened to take in displaced people, as was seen in Gaza over the 15-month-long war.

“Today the (Jenin) camp is uninhabitable and would require major reconstruction efforts for it to stand on its feet,” he said, adding that the “crisis is huge,” and that alternative housing for the displaced might be needed for around six months.

Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israeli troops would remain in the Jenin camp once their current operation is complete – a significant change in Israeli policy.

Jenin’s mayor told CNN that the minister’s statement is “worrying” and raises “many questions about the future of the West Bank, not just Jenin and its camp.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said in a statement Monday that “Jenin camp has been rendered a ghost town.”

“Operations conducted both by Israeli and Palestinian security forces have led to the forced displacement of thousands of camp residents, many of whom will now have nowhere to return to. The basics of life are gone,” it said.

“Today’s shocking scenes in the West Bank undermine the fragile ceasefire reached in Gaza, and risk a new escalation,” the UNRWA statement added.