The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Wednesday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for Thursday in Qatar, dimming hopes for a negotiated truce that Iranian sources say could hold back an Iranian attack on Israel.
The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar's capital Doha on Thursday, and that a ceasefire agreement was still possible. However Axios reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed a trip to the Middle East that had been expected to begin on Tuesday.
Three senior Iranian officials have said that only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil last month.
The Israeli government said it would send a delegation to Thursday's talks, but Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, requested a workable plan to implement a proposal it has already accepted rather than more talks.
"Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the U.N. Security Council resolution and the Biden speech and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it," Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
"Going to new negotiation allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres," he added.
There has been no let-up in fighting in Gaza, where residents of the southern city of Khan Younis said Israeli forces blew up homes in the east and intensified tank shelling on eastern areas of the city centre.
Israel said it was responding to Hamas rocket fire towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday and had struck rocket launching pads and militants among 40 military targets over 24 hours, including in central Gaza, Khan Younis, and western Rafah in the south.
