Hamas offers truce deal over Palestine
Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said tonight that his Hamas group would be willing to accept a temporary Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in exchange for a 10-year truce with Israel.
His comments, reiterating Hamas policy, came as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was to meet Hamas’ supreme leader Khaled Mashaal in Syria to discuss ways to form a coalition government and end international sanctions on the Palestinians.
Haniyeh’s proposal has previously been rejected by Israel and the international community, which demand that Hamas recognise Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence.
“We are with liberating any inch of Palestine,” he said in a televised address.
“But we will not close the door for the next generation, because the weak don’t always stay weak, and the strong won’t stay strong.”
