Hamas official says no move for long-term ceasefire with Israel

Hamas deputy chief in the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Hayya, has denied that the terror group is moving to achieve a long-term ceasefire deal with Israel.

“The talk about a calming for ten years or a halt of the resistance’s actions against the enemy is completely untrue,” Hayya told the pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

“We are a resistance movement. The forms of [our] action may change, but we will not stop resisting the enemy,” he said, adding that weekly protests in the border region between Israel and Gaza constitute “one of the forms of resistance.”

The publication of Hayya’s comments comes three days after the Haaretz daily reported that Israel and Hamas were “[continuing] to hold indirect discussions on a long-term agreement,” without citing a source.

For more than the past year, Hamas has negotiated a series of unofficial ceasefire understandings with Israel.

The understandings have largely entailed Israel lifting restrictions on the movement of goods and people into and out of Gaza in exchange for Hamas and other terror groups in the coastal enclave maintaining relative quiet in the border region.

MORE: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-official-says-no-move-for-long-term-ceasefire-with-israel/