Hamas chief calls for march on al-Aqsa as hostage talks struggle

A senior Hamas leader has called on Palestinians to mark the start of Ramadan next month with a march to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as negotiators struggle to secure a deal to halt the war in Gaza.

The US, Qatar and Egypt have for weeks been trying to broker an agreement between Hamas and Israel to pause the conflict before the Muslim holy month begins to secure the release of Israeli hostages and deliver more aid into the besieged strip.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, said the Palestinian militant group was showing “flexibility”, but it was ready to continue fighting.

Israeli officials and people briefed on the talks said that despite US President Joe Biden suggesting this week that a deal was close, big differences over an agreement remained.

“The gaps are too big, there’s a conceptual misunderstanding between the two sides about what’s more important — a ceasefire or the hostages,” said a person with knowledge of the talks.

Haniyeh’s call for the march on al-Aqsa, which is Islam’s third holiest site, at the start of Ramadan — which is expected to begin on March 10 — will also be considered by Israel as inflammatory.

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians often soar during the holy month, particularly around al-Aqsa, which sits in a compound known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. The compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and the holiest site in Judaism, is a constant flashpoint in the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US and other mediators have been desperate to secure a hostage deal to pause the war in Gaza before Ramadan, fearing that the holy month could prompt a further escalation in violence in the occupied West Bank and across the region.

Biden said this week that a deal was “close” and he hoped it could be in place within days. He spoke after mediators said they had made progress after a meeting of US, Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials in Paris last week.

But leaders of Israel and Hamas have since pushed back against the idea that any breakthrough was imminent.

The talks have been bogged down for weeks as Israel rejects Hamas’s insistence that any truce to release hostages must end with a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Another major sticking point for Israeli negotiators is how many Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences for murder, will be released under the deal.

Shortly after Biden’s remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had “been leading a diplomatic campaign to block pressure designed to end the war prematurely, and to secure strong support for Israel”.

Hamas has yet to officially respond to the revised framework agreement reached last week, with one Israeli official earlier this week counselling caution. “We’re talking to ourselves and it’s still unclear if Hamas is interested. It could all still fall through,” they said.

Some 130 of the 250 hostages seized by Hamas during the militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel are still being held in Gaza, including some believed to have died. That attack killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed almost 30,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials, and devastated huge areas of the strip.

Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that there was no final agreement on “any of the issues that are hampering reaching” a deal.

“We need to make sure we are able to push for a pause before the start of Ramadan,” said Majed Al Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry. “We are all aiming towards that target but the situation is still fluid on the ground.”

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said this week that Hamas wanted to turn Ramadan “into the second phase of their plan that began on October 7”.

“We must not give Hamas what it has not been able to achieve since the beginning of the war and converge the combat fronts,” Gallant said.

Some on Israel’s right wing have called for severe restrictions on access to al-Aqsa for Palestinians during Ramadan, comments that Gallant also decried as “irresponsible”.

Families of hostages held in Gaza have ramped up pressure on Netanyahu’s government to agree a deal, with protests growing in recent weeks.

In Gaza, severe disruptions to humanitarian aid have also become a sticking point in negotiations, Western officials have said. Hamas has demanded a major surge in aid to the enclave as a crucial condition for any agreement.