Hamas proposes an independent Palestinian government after the end of the war against Israel in Gaza
Hamas proposed an independent Palestinian government to run the Gaza Strip after the war, during negotiations aimed at ending more than nine months of fighting between the Islamist movement and Israel in the ravaged territory.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed on Friday in Israeli shelling that hit northern, central and southern Gaza, the scene of a war since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, the enclave's health ministry said.
"We proposed that a non-partisan government with national powers run Gaza and the West Bank after the war," Hossam Badran, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, which has ruled the narrow Palestinian territory since 2007, said in a statement.
His remarks coincide with the resumption of indirect negotiations between the two sides, with a view to a truce and a release of hostages held in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden admitted on Thursday that "progress" had been made in reaching a ceasefire agreement and praised the "positive trend" in talks led by Egypt, Qatar and Washington.
"The administration of Gaza after the war is an internal Palestinian affair that should not suffer any outside interference and we will not talk in Gaza [after the war] with any foreign party," Badran insisted.
A Hamas leader told AFP on condition of anonymity, however, that the proposal, which also calls for "paving the way for general elections", had been presented "with the mediators".
The conflict was triggered when Islamist commandos killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 in southern Israel, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
The Israeli army estimates that 116 people remain captive in Gaza, 42 of them reportedly dead.
In response, Israel launched an offensive that has already killed 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the enclave's Health Ministry.
Hamas announced on Sunday that the movement was no longer demanding a permanent ceasefire to negotiate the release of the hostages, a requirement it had always insisted on.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that he would not end the war until all the hostages were released and Hamas, an organisation he and the United States and the European Union regard as "terrorist", was destroyed.
The Israeli military offensive, accompanied by an almost complete siege of Gaza since 9 October, has ravaged the territory and caused massive displacement of the population, which is suffering from food and water shortages.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) indicated that only five aid trucks managed to enter Gaza last week.
