CAIRO, March 7. /TASS/. Multilateral consultations on the settlement of the situation in the Gaza Strip ended without any agreements reached between Hamas and Israel, Al Jazeera television reported.
According to the report, the talks involved mediators and discussed a potential ceasefire.
Sources told the television channel that Israel rejected Hamas’s demands for "a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal of military units from the Strip and unconditional return of displaced persons."
It was recently reported that the multilateral consultations on resolving the situation in the Gaza Strip and a potential ceasefire had not made serious progress. Reports said "major obstacles" remained between Hamas and Israel that were hard to overcome.
On March 5, Al Arabiya television reported that negotiators in Cairo were working on a ceasefire to be implemented at least in the first week of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which starts on March 11 this year. The report said Israel was to respond to Hamas demands for a clear deadline for presenting its vision of the situation in order to finalize the talks. Earlier, the Cairo negotiators representing Egypt, Qatar and the US proposed to cease fire for a week in exchange for the release of several elderly hostages that are held in the enclave. It was reported that Hamas did not agree to a short pause in hostilities and insisted that it last as long as possible.
Truce negotiations in Cairo started on March 3. The Israeli delegation is not participating in this round. On March 4, the Egyptian TV channel Al-Ghad cited a source as saying that the negotiating parties had made "significant progress" during the first day of the talks and were seeking to reach a ceasefire agreement before Ramadan.