Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to maintain the Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip and is bearing responsibility for a possible failure of mediation efforts to resolve the conflict, League of Arab States Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy said.
"Netanyahu is clearly seeking to derail all mediation efforts and underpin the status quo in the Gaza Strip, which means continued daily killings, expansion of the occupation and hindered efforts to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in which over 2 million Palestinians have been living for three years," Fahmy said.
He added that the Hamas movement has agreed to provisions of its disarmament, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the deployment of an international stabilization force and the transfer of administrative authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a newly-formed technocrat transitional authority. In turn, Israel refused to fulfill its commitments, the secretary-general added.
Fahmy welcomed a statement by eight Muslim countries that condemned Israel of obstructing peace efforts, and called on the United States to exert pressure to ensure an immediate transition to the second phase of the agreement.
On August 9, Netanyahu said that Israel would not agree to a further withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip until Hamas was fully disarmed, ruling out the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
