* Netanyahu says Israel conducting negotiations ‘under fire’
* PM says Hamas must disarm, Israel will ensure security in
Gaza
* Hamas says it has agreed to proposals from mediators
(Updates with recovery of rescue workers bodies, paragraphs 8
and 9)
JERUSALEM/CAIRO, March 30 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated a demand on Sunday for
Hamas to disarm and for its leaders to leave Gaza as he promised
to step up pressure on the group while continuing efforts to
return hostages.
He said Israel would work to implement U.S. President Donald
Trump’s “voluntary emigration plan” for Gaza and said his
cabinet had agreed to keep pressuring Hamas, which says it has
agreed to a ceasefire proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Netanyahu’s
comments were a recipe for “endless escalation” in the region.
Netanyahu rejected assertions that Israel, which has resumed
its bombardment of Gaza after a two-month truce and sent troops
back into the enclave, was not negotiating, saying “we are
conducting it under fire, and therefore it is also effective”.
“We see that there are suddenly cracks,” he said in a video
statement issued on Sunday.
On Saturday, Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, said
the group had agreed to a proposal that security sources said
included the release of five Israeli hostages each week. But he
said laying down its arms as Israel has demanded was a “red
line” the group would not cross.
On Sunday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday,
health authorities in Gaza said at least 24 people, including
several children, had been killed in Israeli strikes. Nine were
killed in a single tent in the southern city of Khan Younis,
they said.
Later on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Service said
it had finally been able to get access to search for rescue
teams that had come under Israeli fire during a rescue mission
in western Rafah, a week after the attack.
It said it had recovered 13 bodies from the scene, seven
of them were Palestinian Red Crescent members, another five were
from the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, and another was a United
Nations worker. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Since Israel resumed its attacks in Gaza on March 18,
hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands
have been forced to evacuate areas in northern Gaza where they
had returned following the ceasefire agreement in January.
Netanyahu said Israel was demanding that Hamas lay down its
arms and said its leaders would be allowed to leave Gaza. He
gave no detail on how long Israeli troops would remain in the
enclave but repeated that Hamas’s military and government
capacities must be crushed.
“We will ensure general security in the Gaza Strip and
enable the implementation of the Trump plan, the voluntary
emigration plan,” he said. “That is the plan, we do not hide it,
we are ready to discuss it at any time.”
Trump originally proposed moving the entire 2.3 million
population of Gaza to countries including Egypt and Jordan and
developing the Gaza Strip as a U.S.-owned resort. However, no
country has agreed to take in the population and Israel has
since said that any departures by Palestinians would be
voluntary.
EID IN GAZA
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after a devastating
Hamas attack on Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip on
October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people, according to an
Israeli tally, and saw 251 abducted as hostages.
The Israeli campaign has killed more than 50,000
Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, and
devastated much of the coastal enclave, leaving hundreds of
thousands of people in tents and makeshift shelters.
Sunday’s strikes took place as Palestinians celebrated the
Eid holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan.
“We are here to celebrate the rituals of God amid the
destruction and the sounds of cannons,” said Minnatallah Al-Far,
in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, where most of the area has been
laid waste by Israeli bombardment.
“In Gaza, our situation is very difficult. Other people are
celebrating these rituals in peace and safety, but we do them
amid destruction and bombardment,” she said.
In Israel, Netanyahu has faced a wave of demonstrations
since the military resumed its action in Gaza, with families and
supporters of the remaining 59 hostages joining forces with
protesters angry at government actions they see as undermining
Israeli democracy.
On Sunday, he rejected what he described as “empty claims
and slogans” and said military pressure was the only thing that
had returned hostages.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Alex Richardson and
Sharon Singleton)
