Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar sees the renewed Israeli attacks on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip as a way of forcing a restart to stalled talks on an extension of a ceasefire deal.

According to Saar, US special envoy Steve Witkoff recently made two proposals on extending the ceasefire and hostage/prisoner swaps, both of which Palestinian Islamist group Hamas rejected. The parties have been at an impasse in negotiations for two and a half weeks, he added.

“If we had waited any longer, the situation would not have changed,” Saar said.

After the Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, only the deployment of ground troops by the Jewish state had brought an eventual agreement on the release of hostages, the Israeli foreign minister said.

Hamas rejected the Witkoff plan because it wants the immediate implementation of a second phase of the Gaza deal, which provides for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops. This was originally due to start at the beginning of March.