LONDON, July 26. /TASS/. Israel intends to change the plan of a ceasefire agreement with the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, Reuters reported, citing sources.

They said that at talks held in Cairo in early July, Israeli officials imposed a new condition that civilians must be screened as they move from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip.

Officials involved in the talks on the Israeli side said they wanted "a vetting mechanism for civilian populations returning to the north of Gaza, where they fear these populations could support" Hamas fighters who remain entrenched there, the news agency quoted a Western official as saying. Hamas rejected the condition, he said. Israel also demanded that its army be given control of the border between Gaza and Egypt, the sources said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, the White House and the Egyptian Foreign Ministry have not yet provided comment in response to a Reuters request.

Earlier, a Hamas spokesman said the negotiations stalled some time ago because of the intransigence of the Israeli side and Israel's tactics of slowing down and prolonging them. He added that Israel has put forward new conditions that go beyond the latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Gaza.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. 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 total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported on the West Bank. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 39,000 Palestinians were killed and 90,400 were injured.