CAIRO, February 27. /TASS/. Israel’s unwillingness to leave a section on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt – the so-called Philadelphia Corridor – violates the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, said the Palestinian movement Hamas demanding that the mediators force Israel “to fulfill all the terms of the deal.”
“The statements that Israel plans to turn the border between Gaza and Egypt into a buffer zone represent a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement and an attempt to create a pretext for its eventual breakdown in the future,” Hamas said on its Telegram channel.
The movement confirmed that it “fully adheres to the terms of the deal” and is ready to negotiate its second stage. This is why the radicals are asking the mediators and “the entire international community” to take “immediate and serious measures to oblige the Israeli authorities to fulfill their part of the terms of the agreement.”
Hamas also called statements by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz that the militants planned to attack the Israeli military and Jewish settlements in the West Bank during the ceasefire baseless.
“By making such statements the Israeli authorities are trying to evade their obligations under the ceasefire agreement,” Hamas believes.
On February 20, CNN said citing a source that Israel was not going to withdraw its troops from the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The military was supposed to begin withdrawing troops from the region in early March if the current ceasefire was extended, but the source said that Israel “will not allow Hamas to strengthen its positions again” by smuggling its people in.
On January 15, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said that as a result of mediation efforts by Doha, Cairo and Washington, Israel and Hamas had agreed to release the hostages held in Gaza and to introduce a ceasefire there. The agreement entered into force on January 19, and expires on March 2. All the Israeli hostages who were supposed to be released at the first stage of the deal, alive and dead, were returned to their homeland. In exchange, Palestinian prisoners were released from prisons, some of them were deported from the Palestinian territories.