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Cairo talks stall on weapons
Negotiations in Cairo over governing Gaza and the ceasefire’s second phase centered on items 5 and 8 of a roadmap presented by Nikolai Mladenov, the senior envoy for Gaza at the Peace Council, with a Hamas negotiating delegation led by Dr. Khalil al-Hayya meeting mediators and representatives of the Peace Council.
A faction source told Al-Jazeera Net that the talks settled on Item 5, including a final formulation accepted by the Hamas delegation and the Palestinian factions, and that the text came in four paragraphs covering maintaining government employees and upholding their rights, commitment to government debts and financial obligations, adherence to the legal and administrative framework, and resolving outstanding issues through a mechanism of national consensus.
The sticking point remained Item 8, where the Hamas delegation requested to return to Turkey to consult higher movement leadership about a new formulation that added the term 'restricting the infrastructure' of the resistance alongside 'heavy weapons,' a formulation not accepted by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front.
An Egyptian source told Al-Jazeera Net that Cairo is committed to reaching a solution to the weapons crisis within a Palestinian-Palestinian framework and stressed that Egypt does not endorse any solution that would require handing over the weapons of the resistance to Israel.
A member of the Gaza Administration Committee in Cairo said Mladenov refused to commit to a specific date for the committee to enter Gaza, attributing this to Netanyahu’s current rejection of that step, and the committee also rejected a proposal to operate from inside the sector in a small camp near the Tel al-Sultan area in Rafah on the Egyptian border.
Hamas returns, aid urged
Anadolu Ajansi reported that Hamas announced the arrival of a leadership delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya in Cairo to resume negotiations to stabilize the ceasefire and move to the second phase, with Taher al-Nuno saying the aim was to increase aid to the Gaza Strip, complete the first phase, and accelerate the entry of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza as agreed.
Nuno said national and governmental preparations have been completed in the Gaza Strip for implementation and to facilitate handover tasks, and he said the Hamas negotiating delegation will return to Cairo within less than two days after negotiations that lasted several days last week.
The same Anadolu Ajansi account tied the push to the resignation of the Gaza Sector Administration Committee two days earlier, after Ismail al-Thawateh announced the resignation of the head of the Government Emergency Committee and the acting head of government operations, Mohammed al-Fra, to confirm the seriousness of the measures and facilitate the transfer of administration to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
Nikolai Miladinov, the senior representative of the Peace Council in Gaza, called for speeding up agreement on the remaining implementation items in the roadmap for the Palestinian side, as the talks continued alongside Cairo-hosted consultations to complete the implementation of the agreement.
In parallel, Asharq Al-Awsat English said Hamas and ceasefire mediators reached broad agreement on a proposed “road map” in Cairo, with negotiators reaching consensus on nearly all 15 provisions while Articles 5 and 8 remained unresolved and Hamas planned to consult its political and military leadership before deciding on final wording.
Roadmap awaits Israel
Asharq Al-Awsat English reported that mediators appeared satisfied with progress and were now awaiting Israel’s response, while Hamas sources and a Palestinian faction official said mediators developed compromise language for Article 5 governing employees of the Hamas-run administration in Gaza and Article 8 covering the collection and storage of weapons.
“Sources from the Palestinian factions revealed the behind-the-scenes of the current round of negotiations in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, between Hamas's negotiating delegation led by Dr”
The same account said the draft reiterates the dismantling of armed gangs and a simultaneous Israeli withdrawal, and it described Hamas’ position that the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza should govern the entire enclave rather than only areas vacated by Israeli forces, warning against Israeli attempts to restrict the committee’s authority in Israeli-controlled Rafah or confine it to designated humanitarian or “safe” zones.
Basem Naim accused Mladenov on Wednesday of favoring Israel after remarks he made after a donors’ conference in Brussels, and Naim disputed Mladenov’s claim that humanitarian aid flows into Gaza had improved compared with the period before the agreement.
Naim also said, citing figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office, that more than 1,100 Palestinians had been killed and over 3,000 wounded, most of them women and children, while rejecting claims that Hamas had dismissed the road map and saying it had not yet been presented to Israel.
In Okaz, a source familiar with the negotiations said previous talks held in Cairo, Doha, and Turkey failed to achieve a breakthrough, and it quoted that Mladenov and the Peace Council “want Hamas and the resistance factions to surrender all types of weapons they possess and pledge not to possess any weapons in the future according to Israeli conditions, which is unacceptable as long as the land remains occupied.”
