David Cameron urges Hamas to agree to 40-day Gaza ceasefire dealThe Guardian/UK, Apr 29, 2024
David Cameron has urged Hamas to agree to a deal for a sustained 40-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of potentially thousands of hostages and prisoners.
The foreign secretary also challenged Arab states to accept that the Hamas military leadership responsible for the attack on 7 October must leave Gaza.
Speaking at a World Economic Forum event in Riyadh, he echoed the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, saying: “I hope Hamas do take this deal and, frankly, all the pressure in the world and all the eyes in the world should be on them today saying ‘take that deal’, accept the generosity of the offer of a ceasefire that has been negotiated with Israel.”
He added that for a “political horizon for a two-state solution”, with an independent Palestine co-existing with Israel, the “people responsible for October 7, the Hamas leadership, would have to leave Gaza and you’ve got to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza”.
By contrast, three Arab foreign ministers speaking at the same forum presented Hamas as an idea born out of a legitimate struggle for a Palestinian state, but suggested the group’s influence would fade if a path to the establishment of that state was set out.
The Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, also insisted there would be no normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia unless there was “a credible and irreversible path to a Palestinian state”.
Cameron was in Riyadh to hold talks with both western and Arab leaders on the progress of the hostage talks, and an as yet unpublished Arab plan for the administration of Gaza and the West Bank if a ceasefire is agreed. He said: “Hamas was an extremist organisation that believes in a very extremist interpretation of Islam and a particularly violent one as well.”
Cameron said peace and stability in the Middle East was unobtainable “unless you deal with the question of the future for the Palestinian people”, but added: “I don’t think we should be naive and think that all the problems will be solved if that were to happen.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/29/david-cameron-urges-hamas-to-agree-to-40-day-gaza-ceasefire-deal