Hamas' position on the current hostage deal proposal is "negative," Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas member based in Lebanon, told the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese TV outlet al-Manar on Wednesday.
While Hamas officials have often commented on the talks during prior negotiation rounds, a final and official response by the terror group has so far always been transmitted to Israel through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Despite being reportedly expected for Wednesday evening, this hadn't happened at the time of publication on Thursday morning.
Hamas' press office later clarified Hamdan's comments, stating, "The negative position does not mean negotiations have stopped. There is a back-and-forth."
On Wednesday afternoon, Arabic news channel al-Arabi reported that Egyptian officials expected Hamas' answer to arrive in the next 24 hours.
"Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a special meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Riyadh on Monday.
Meanwhile, Israel's Army Radio reported that among the main concessions offered by Israel is a withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor bisecting the Gaza Strip, which has been held and defended continuously since the start of the ground operation in Gaza.
In his interview with al-Manar, Hamdan threatened that negotiations would be broken off if Israel would carry out its long-planned incursion into Rafah, which Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu said would happen with or without a hostage deal being reached.
"The resistance does not negotiate under fire, Hamdan said, adding that "the enemy is trying to blackmail everyone with the Battle of Rafah."
He also asserted that Hamas' forces continued to fight the IDF, claiming "the Zionist elite brigades collapsed in the Gaza Strip."
Contradicting several reports over the past months, Hamdan noted that contact with Hamas' leadership in the Gaza Strip, especially with Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif, wasn't harmed.
"Communication between the leadership of the resistance in Gaza and the movement's political bureau is continuous," he said.
Despite the ongoing negotiations, another senior Hamas member, Abd-al-Rahman Shadid, called students at Palestinian universities in the West Bank to armed struggle against Israeli forces.
"Lead the military confrontation with the occupation," Shadid said. "We need to deny the Israeli enemy every minute of security in the West Bank until it cannot allow the settlement anymore. The Palestinian people should confront the Jewish religious ceremonies in our holy sites, especially in the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
He also praised students of Birzeit University near Ramallah, who attacked the German envoy to the Palestinian territories during a museum visit on Wednesday.
A crowd of students confronted the envoy over Germany's support for Israel, causing him to flee as students vandalized his car and threw objects at him.
Republished with permission from All Israel News.