Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya told Al Jazeera that the resistance movement has been ready to sign a ceasefire deal for Gaza, but Netanyahu has prevented that from happening.

“The last Israeli proposal was presented on May 27. It was presented by the Israeli occupation and adopted by Biden word by word. The US also went to the Security Council and it was adopted there. Hamas welcomed the principles put out by Biden and the decision of the Security Council. We expected an opportunity for an agreement. We agreed to the talks,” said al-Hayya, who leads Hamas’s negotiating team.

Yet Israel started to evade any agreement, with Netanyahu imposing new conditions and “falsely” claiming that Hamas had rejected the proposal, al-Hayya said.

“In fact, we agreed to Israel’s proposal that was presented on May 29,” he said. “We only sent questions to the mediators who confirmed that all our questions are approved.”