Sky News-Israeli Delegation Leaves Doha After Hamas Rejects US Proposal

Sky News Arabia reporting that according to its sources the Israeli delegation has left Doha, Qatar after Hamas rejected the American ceasefire-for-hostages proposal that Israel agreed to. On the evening of 25 March, Hamas said that the proposal did not take into account its core demands of a “comprehensive ceasefire, an withdrawal from the Strip, the return of displaced people and a real prisoner exchange.”

• After the Hamas rejection Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed that the US decision to abstain, rather than veto, a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the holy month of Ramadan was a contributing factor. Katz called the abstention “a moral and ethical mistake", adding that the resolution (notably its Arabic language version) showed that “Hamas does not need to rush”.
• Katz: “In our view, there was a message, a no-good message, to anyone on Hamas’s side, that the US does not support Israel as much, and so we need to prove, militarily, that we will stand by our goals,”