Egypt tells Hamas to keep ceasefire until after the US elections
During a visit by a Hamas delegation to Cairo last week, Egypt called on the terrorist group to maintain the ceasefire reached with Israel in August until after the US elections on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
A Hamas delegation left the Gaza Strip for Cairo last week to discuss bilateral relations, mutual interests, regional politics, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and developments between Gaza and Israel, among other topics.
The delegation was headed by Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, who was joined by bureau members Izzat Al-Rishq, Khalil Al-Hayya and Rouhi Mushtaha.
While the Hamas delegation wanted Egypt to pressure Israel into implementing the understandings of the ceasefire, sources from Hamas told Al-Akhbar that Egypt’s responses to the terrorist group’s demands were “lackluster.”
The Hamas delegation was informed that Israel had told Egypt that some of the requests, such as supplying natural gas to the Strip, would take years.
The Al-Akhbar report added that the Egyptians stressed to Hamas that an escalation should not be pursued currently, insinuating to Hamas that Israel may consider returning to targeted assassinations against terrorist leaders if an escalation occurs.
Explosive balloons were reported in southern Israel last week, as tensions rose between terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, with the groups threatening action if the health condition of Maher al-Akhras, a Palestinian who has been on a hunger strike in Israel for almost 100 days – becomes too dire, or he dies.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist movement announced a general call-up of its forces on Saturday night, citing the deterioration in al-Akhras’s condition as the reason.
Akhras has been in administrative detention for months. He denies being a member of PIJ and has been arrested multiple times in the past, according to WAFA.
Israel has said that Akhras is a member of Islamic Jihad who poses a danger to the state, though it was unclear if the accusation was related to carrying out actual violence or some kind of recruiting or incitement relating to the group.
Except for sporadic balloon launches in September, the launches had largely stopped since a ceasefire was reached between Hamas and Israel at the end of August, after weeks of daily explosive and incendiary balloon launches and rocket fire.
Source: JP
