Hamas Insists Any Ceasefire Must Include ‘Hamas Totally Didn’t Lose’ Proviso

“It might look like Israeli actions somehow forced Hamas into this position, where it looks weakened.”

Cairo, May 13 – Representatives of the Islamist terrorist group holding Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip stated again today that an agreement with Israel to pause hostilities in exchange for the release of some or all of the hostages will not occur unless Israel accedes that a clause in the agreement explicitly declare that no one must construe this or any other development as implying that the terrorist group suffered any manner of defeat that forced them to stop fighting and agree to release the hostages.

Hamas negotiators and their Qatari overlords maintained their insistence, first expressed last year, that any ceasefire accord between it and Israel must include a proviso that Hamas totally didn’t lose the war it launched on October 7, 2023, with an invasion and spate of atrocities through southern Israel. Vast swaths of the Gaza Strip lie in ruins, more than 20,000 Hamas fighters are dead, thousands more incapacitated, the Strip is under total blockade, its residents increasingly want to leave, the incidence of rocket fire into Israel from Gaza has fallen 99%, and Hamas is running short of cash to pay its men, among other setbacks for the organization – which, its leadership contends in no way indicates or implies that they have lost or are losing the war.

“Hamas wishes to make it clear that nothing so shameful as ‘losing’ happened to it,” explained one member of the negotiating team who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Even if no language of ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ is included in the document at all, people will talk, and it might still look like the Zionists hit Hamas hard enough to induce them to release hostages; even if the terms include the release of a large number of Palestinians from Israeli prisons – nevertheless, it might look like Israeli actions somehow forced Hamas into this position, where it looks weakened and not all the mighty liberator it promised to be. So we need to make sure it is explicitly stated that it must not be construed, in any manner whatsoever, that Hamas did anything but win.”

“You might get the impression otherwise, from looking at Gaza,” acknowledged Dril Qornqob, a Qatari team member. “Thus the importance of stressing how not-losing any such arrangement really is. If we don’t insist Hamas totally didn’t lose, wasn’t owned, no, we mean it, was definitely not owned, people will come away with the wrong idea, and that can’t happen.”

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