Hamas said Saturday it remained ready to move forward with a U.S.-backed Gaza peace plan, while urging pressure on Israel, which maintains it did not agree to the deal's latest provisions.
The Palestinian resistance group informed U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace that it stood by the latest stage of the plan, under which it would hand over weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee in the war-battered territory.
"Hamas and other factions have confirmed to mediators their readiness to begin implementing the agreement and move to the second phase, provided it receives Israeli approval and that Israel begins implementing the agreement," a Hamas official told AFP Saturday.
"Hamas is urging the U.S. administration to exert pressure on Israel to compel it to abide by the agreement and move to the second phase," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Trump last week had hailed as a breakthrough that Hamas had agreed to disarmament under the plan, with the Board of Peace saying Israel would in tandem carry out a phased withdrawal from much of Gaza.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a tough reelection fight in October and wide opposition from his right-wing base to the Gaza deal, said Tuesday that Israel had not agreed to the "draft" presented by the Board of Peace.
Netanyahu met Monday with the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, who backtracked and said Israel would withdraw only after full disarmament by Hamas.
Israel's military also vowed to keep targeting Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7 incursion.
On Saturday, Israeli gunfire killed a Palestinian east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defense agency.
Some 10 people, including children, were also injured across the Gaza Strip, with some in critical condition, he told AFP.
But the Israeli military operations in recent days appear to have decreased in intensity, with firing and drones reported but not airstrikes.
Israeli operations in Gaza have killed 1,258 Palestinians since October last year, when the two sides agreed to a cease-fire backed by Trump, according to the territory's Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks during the same period.
