A senior Hamas official has said that the Palestinian group does not wish to continue governing the Gaza Strip, adding that it has already agreed to the formation of a technocratic committee to administer the enclave in the next phase.
The official told Al Arabiya news website that Hamas has approved all proposed names for the technocratic body, noting that there is internal agreement on the list.
He added that despite progress in talks, Israel has been obstructing the practical implementation of the agreed steps on the ground.
The Hamas official also said the deployment of international forces would be strictly limited to monitoring the ceasefire, rather than administering Gaza or taking part in internal governance. Their role, he explained, would be to separate the parties and prevent renewed clashes.
He added that mediating states support assigning a monitoring role to any international force deployed as part of the ceasefire arrangement.
A US-brokered ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, halting two years of war that was triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and that has devastated the narrow coastal strip.
Both sides have accused each other of ceasefire violations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, denounced the ongoing corruption case against him as a ‘Bugs Bunny trial’ and defended his controversial pardon request in a video published on social media.
The three-minute video, released late on Thursday, came a week after Netanyahu formally requested a pardon from Israeli President Isaac Herzog, arguing that his prosecution was dividing the nation.
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