Palestinian resistance factions on Thursday issued a set of preconditions for signing a ceasefire agreement with Israel, which has continued to pound the blockaded Gaza Strip with fierce airstrikes for the last 11 days.
"The Palestinian factions have agreed to a set of demands and presented them to mediators," Ihab al-Ghusein, a spokesman for the Palestinian factions, said in a press release.
A Palestinian source told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that Gaza-based faction Hamas planned to issue a five-point blueprint for a ceasefire with Israel.
According to the source, the blueprint calls for reopening all of the Gaza Strip's border crossings and creating a "naval corridor" for the coastal territory.
The proposal also calls for the permanent reopening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, along with international guarantees that the crossing would not be reclosed.
The Hamas plan further calls for giving residents of the Gaza Strip access to East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque and the release of Palestinian detainees freed in a 2011 prisoner swap but who were recently rearrested by Israeli authorities.
The Palestinian source said the blueprint would be presented to the Arab League, Egypt, the United Nations and Jordan.
Since July 7, Israeli warplanes have pounded the Gaza Strip with the ostensible aim of ending Palestinian rocket fire from the besieged coastal enclave.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire rockets at Israel – some of which have reached Tel Aviv – in response to the ongoing airstrikes.
On Monday, Egypt proposed a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza-based resistance factions with the ostensible aim of ending days of violence in which 237 Palestinians – and one Israeli – have been killed.
Israel briefly accepted Egypt's ceasefire proposal before resuming airstrikes on Tuesday, citing the failure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to respond positively to the initiative.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, for their part, rejected the Egyptian proposal, with the latter saying the terms of the deal failed to meet the basic aspirations of the Palestinian people and the conditions set by the Palestinian resistance.
