Iran issues demands to end the war

Iran ceasefire demands: Tehran lists 7 conditions to halt Israel-Hamas war

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Iran handed a seven-point list to France, Qatar and Oman that links any end to the Gaza war to a permanent Israeli withdrawal and lifting of the blockade on the enclave, Tehran’s foreign ministry confirmed.

The document stipulates an immediate ceasefire, full Israeli military exit from Gaza and a complete end to the 17-year air, sea and land siege, spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday.

Iran, which arms and funds Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has not joined any of the Qatar-mediated talks that produced short pauses in November and May. Its move comes days after Israeli tanks re-entered northern Gaza and as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the region.

Baghaei said the text was delivered to Paris, Doha and Muscat on Saturday. Copies were shared with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar and with Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, two officials familiar with the channel told Reuters.

The demands mirror those Hamas tabled last month, but Tehran added clauses demanding Israeli forces leave the Philadelphi corridor on Gaza’s Egypt border and that reconstruction funds flow only through a Palestinian unity government. Israel’s government rejects both points.

French foreign ministry deputy spokesman Quentin Thissen confirmed receipt of the Iranian paper and said Paris would “study the content” and relay it to Israel, Egypt and the United States. Qatari and Omani officials declined to comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the Iranian initiative at a Likud faction meeting. “We do not take lectures from the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” he said, according to a participant who requested anonymity.

The Netanyahu government says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and 116 hostages seized on 7 October are freed. Israeli officials have previously warned that accepting Iranian terms would mean “strategic defeat.”

Washington’s reaction was cooler. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters the United States would examine any proposal that “genuinely advances a durable end to the conflict,” but said Iran must first “stop arming the very groups prolonging the war.”

Tehran’s foreign ministry released the list in both Persian and English. It also seeks prisoner exchanges on a “one-for-30” ratio, international guarantees that Israel will not re-invade, and a U.N.-supervised reconstruction fund worth $15 billion within 90 days.

Regional diplomats said Iran’s intervention appeared timed to pre-empt a fresh Israeli assault on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where 1.4 million Palestinians have shelter. Israeli officials say they will act “within weeks” unless Hamas releases the hostages.

Background

Iran has provided Hamas with an estimated $100 million a year in cash, weapons and training since 2017, according to U.S. Treasury estimates. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force oversees the pipeline that includes long-range rockets used in the 7 October attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.

Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war for decades, but tensions spiked after Tehran’s 1 April embassy compound strike in Damascus killed 7 IRGC officers. Israel’s 1 April retaliation involved a limited missile barrage on an Iranian air base, the first direct attack since the 1980s.

What’s Next

Blinken will brief Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday and then travel to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Arab diplomats expect a unified Arab ceasefire plan to be presented to the U.N. Security Council before Ramadan ends on 9 April.

The Iranian paper raises the diplomatic stakes weeks before a possible Israeli offensive. Western officials say any ceasefire now hinges on whether Hamas accepts terms that Iran has effectively endorsed, or whether Netanyahu risks deeper isolation by rejecting them.