Hamas Official Signals Interest in Negotiating a Lasting Ceasefire With Israel

Ismail Haniyeh, chief of Hamas’s political bureau who is based in Qatar, signaled on Wednesday that he was interested in negotiating a sustainable ceasefire with Israel.

“We are open to discuss any arrangement or initiative that could end the (Israeli) aggression,” Haniyeh said in a televised speech on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV.

Suggesting that he favored some sort of two-state solution, Haniyeh said he was open to “putting the Palestinian house in order both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” and entering talks that could lead to a “political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”