Israel scraps peace talks with Hamas after UN ceasefire vote

Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled peace talks with Hamas following the UN Security Council’s demand for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

On Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister’s office said he had decided to recall the delegation to Qatar because of Hamas’s unbending negotiating position.

Mr Netanyahu said the terror group had rejected America’s “compromise” proposal that would have linked any ceasefire to the release of Israeli hostages. 

Instead, Hamas had insisted on “extreme demands”, including an immediate end to hostilities.

“Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations and reaching the deal,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that it was “an unfortunate testimony to the damaging nature of the UN Security Council’s decision”.

The Israeli leader was referring to the  resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza that was passed on Monday after the US, Israel’s key ally, abstained rather than use its veto.

Meanwhile, on Monday  the Royal Air Force carried out Britain’s first aid drop over Gaza as part of international efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the sealed-off enclave.

An Atlas plane flew from Jordan to air-drop over 10 tonnes of food supplies, including water, rice, cooking oil and baby formula.

“The UK has already tripled our aid budget to Gaza, but we want to go further in order to reduce human suffering,” said Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary. 

The foreign ministry of Qatar said talks would still continue. An unnamed Israeli official told the Haaretz newspaper that “part of” the delegation will stay in Doha to continue the talks, insisting the deal “has not collapsed”.

Families of some of the hostages were angered by the move and the government’s apparent refusal to prioritise the rescue of their loved ones. 

Several relatives who were invited to a parliament hearing on Tuesday afternoon started shouting “disgrace” on hearing that the Knesset will not cancel its recess, due to start next weekend.

Mr Netanyahu, who called off a trip to Washington after the UN vote, faced scathing criticism in Israeli media on Tuesday for “overreacting” to the resolution.

A well-placed columnist at Maariv, a the centrist newspaper, called the prime minister’s reaction “madness” that “humiliated the American administration for no reason”.

“Every new day that that man is in office causes strategic damage to the future of the State of Israel,” wrote Ben Caspit.

Despite the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, the IDF ramped up bombings of Gaza on Monday night, describing them as the largest in weeks. 

Damage and loss of life was reported across the Gaza Strip, including 18 people, nine of them children, in an airstrike on one residential building in the north-east of Rafah.