GAZA CITY, Palestine

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant's admission that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who is creating obstacles to reaching a cease-fire in Gaza confirms his “lies and intransigence,” the Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Monday.

In a statement, Hamas political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq said what Gallant said "confirms what we have always said: that Netanyahu is lying to the world and the families of the (Israeli) prisoners (in Gaza)."

He added that Netanyahu "does not want to reach an agreement and that all he cares about is the continuation and expansion of the war."

Al-Rishq noted that Hamas's flexibility and positive response to cease-fire proposals, including US President Joe Biden's call for a cease-fire last May, "collided with Netanyahu's intransigence and his evasion of the obligation to reach a cease-fire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal."

He urged the international community to "exert pressure on Netanyahu and his government to stop the aggression and the war of genocide and reach an exchange deal."

Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu and Gallant traded barbs over the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, with the latter accusing the former of obstructing a prisoner swap deal with Palestinians.

Last week, Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators urged Israel and Hamas to finalize the details of a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal with no further delays or excuses.

While Israel said it will send a delegation to the talks, Hamas demanded that mediators present a plan to implement the cease-fire proposal supported by Biden that it had agreed to on July 2.

Indirect talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt have failed to agree on a permanent cease-fire deal over Netanyahu’s rejection of Hamas’s call for ending the war and allowing the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed roughly 39,900 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,000 others, according to local health authorities.

More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara