CAIRO, June 6. /TASS/. The Palestinian Hamas movement has demanded that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip a week before the deal on the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners comes into effect, the Egyptian TV channel Al-Ghad said referring to sources.

According to it, "this should mean not a humanitarian pause, but a complete cessation of armed aggression against the enclave." The TV channel's sources said they had obtained a response from Hamas to the proposal presented by the mediators. According to the document, the radical group also demanded that Israel set free "all female prisoners regardless of their sentence," as well as "all inmates of advanced age and those suffering from various diseases." The TV channel did not mention the terms under which Israeli female hostages and elderly Israelis held in Gaza would be released.

Hamas emphasized that it considered it necessary to ensure "freedom of movement across Gaza and the possibility for refugees to return to the places where they live," as well as "the delivery of humanitarian aid to all areas of the enclave without any division." Also, Hamas announced "the need for international guarantees that Israeli troops will fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip."

Earlier on June 6, the Egyptian TV channel Al Quahera Al Ekhbariya informed that Hamas was ready to submit its response to the Gaza Strip truce proposal within the next few days. The channel's source said that "intensive contacts have been established of late to resume indirect negotiations for a settlement in the strip" and that Cairo "received positive signals from Hamas about the movement's desire to move towards a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave." According to him, the leadership of the radical movement is seriously and positively looking into the proposals it has received.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a state of war readiness, announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well. In late November 2023, a temporary humanitarian ceasefire was brokered by Egypt and Qatar, which lasted for a week. During this time, 110 hostages were released, according to the Israeli side. On December 1, the ceasefire was violated and hostilities resumed, continuing to this day.