A deadly Israeli attack that targeted Hamas' truce negotiating delegation in Qatar this week would not change the Palestinian resistance group's terms for ending Israel’s war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.
In a televised address on Thursday, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said the strike targeted the group's negotiating delegation while they were discussing a new ceasefire proposal delivered by the mediator, Qatar’s prime minister, just a day earlier.
"At the moment of the terrorist attack, the negotiating delegation was in the process of discussing its response to the proposal,” he said.
Qatar has been hosting and mediating negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Barhoum reaffirmed Hamas's key demands: a full ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a real prisoner-for-hostage exchange, humanitarian relief, and reconstruction of the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Hamas said five of its members had been killed in the attack, including the son of Hamas's top ceasefire negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya.
