Israeli media outlets reported on Wednesday that Palestinian resistance movement Hamas wanted Türkiye, along with Russia and China, to act as guarantors in any cease-fire deal with Israel.
Israel’s Kan11 news quoted an Israeli source involved in the negotiations for the release of hostages held by Hamas, saying that the group’s demands did not appear in the previous drafts it submitted for the deal. Media reports say Israel and the United States rejected this condition.
U.S. President Joe Biden presented a three-stage cease-fire roadmap last month and Hamas recently sent its response to the deal. The three-stage plan, endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and some countries, includes a six-week cease-fire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and Gaza's internationally-backed reconstruction. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said "many" of Hamas's demands were "minor and not unanticipated," while "others differ more substantively from what was outlined in the U.N. Security Council resolution." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Qatar to discuss the issue, said Israel was behind the plan, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has far-right members strongly opposed to the deal, has yet to endorse it formally.
The changes that Hamas has requested to a cease-fire proposal by the U.S. are "not significant" and include the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, a senior leader in the group told Reuters on Thursday.
In the early days of the latest flare-up of the conflict on Oct. 7, Türkiye expressed its willingness to act as a guarantor state for any deal to end it.
Ankara champions a two-state solution to end the conflict permanently and is a staunch opponent of Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed over 37,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, which it describes as a genocide attempt. Israel is currently on trial at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide. Türkiye also maintains close ties with the Hamas leadership and is among the countries defining them as a resistance group.
Türkiye seeks to convince world powers to join it in a permanent solution to the ongoing conflict. To mobilize the international community, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made personal visits and held phone calls with leaders of the countries with a say over the matter, from Qatar and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Russia.
At a news conference on Wednesday in Ankara with visiting Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said countries that unconditionally support Israel turned a blind eye to the massacre in Gaza. He said the "fundamentalist government" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued its "systematic massacre" of Palestinians, adding, "Türkiye will not stand idly by amid the ongoing massacre in Gaza." "From our Arab brothers within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to our friends within BRICS, everyone is concerned about the tragedy in Gaza. Those who ignore the massacre are morally responsible," he said. Fidan stressed that the "only way for the bloodshed in Gaza to stop is through a two-state solution."
