A senior Hamas official said Thursday that the “roadmap” presented by Joe Biden last week is not actually a “new proposal” for a cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages.

“The truth is that no new proposal has been presented to Hamas,” Osama Hamdan, a senior official of the Beirut-based Palestinian Islamist movement, told AFP in a telephone interview with an AFP reporter in the Gaza Strip.

US President Joe Biden presented on May 31 a rough phased plan, according to him, an Israeli proposal, in view of a complete ceasefire between the Israeli armed forces and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the framework of which there will be a gradual release of hostages . He spoke of an Israeli “road map”.

But “there is no proposal, all there is are the words that (Joe) Biden said in his speech” last Friday, Mr. Hamdan insisted.

“Until now, the Americans have not presented any document with which (the Israelis) commit to abide by what Biden said in his speech,” he explained.

According to the Hamas official, the Democratic president “tried to cover up Israel’s rejection” of an earlier proposal, discussed in early May, that had been accepted by the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Hamas, Mr. Hamdan clarified, is ready to accept an agreement that will satisfy its demands for a permanent cease-fire and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces from the Gaza Strip.

“Urgent Priority”

Last Thursday night, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he hoped to receive “a response from Hamas as soon as possible.”

“We see it as an urgent priority to get this cease-fire approved so that the suffering (…) in Gaza can begin to be alleviated,” he told accredited reporters in Washington.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the plan as presented by Joe Biden “incomplete.”

Yesterday the US president and 16 other heads of state and government, mainly from Europe and Latin America, again called on Hamas to accept the conclusion of a cease-fire agreement with Israel.

For months, Qatar, Egypt and the US have been brokering indirect negotiations to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, where eight months of Israeli military operations have so far killed at least 36,654 people, mostly civilians, according to with the Hamas Health Ministry.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid by Hamas’ military arm into southern Israel on October 7 that left 1,194 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures.

Of the 251 people kidnapped and taken hostage in Gaza, 120 are believed to remain in the enclave, but 41 of them are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military.

In late November, a week-long ceasefire allowed the release of 105 hostages, including 80 Israelis and dual nationals, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israel.