Xinhua News Agency, Gaza, October 1 (Reporter Zhao Weihong) A source close to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) told Xinhua News Agency on the 1st that Hamas may conditionally accept the "20-point plan" put forward by US President Trump to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Discussions between Hamas and relevant Palestinian factions around the plan entered the second day. The source said that Hamas may propose conditions that some provisions of the plan must be revised, a clear timetable for Israeli troop withdrawal and Hamas-related guarantees must be clarified.

He said Hamas demanded that Israel cease its military operations in the Gaza Strip completely and assured that it would not continue airstrikes against the Gaza Strip as it did after a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in November last year, and that there would be a ¡°concrete timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.¡±

The source said that the "20-point plan" has some positive elements on the surface, but it contains "long-term risks." In his view, the current version is "fundamentally different" from the "Trump 21-Point Middle East Peace Plan" previously proposed by the United States to several Arab and Islamic countries, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made "major revisions" to it.

Palestinian political analyst Hani Masri said the scheme ¡°presents serious risks¡± and provides Israel with ¡°immediate and definite benefits¡± but only a ¡°ambiguous and delayed promise¡± to the Palestinians that the scheme can only be ¡°conditionally accepted¡± or it would ¡°be a new kind of colonialism that undermines the two-state scheme.¡±

Trump announced after talks with Netanyahu in the White House on September 29 that Netanyahu accepted the ¡°20-point plan¡±. Hamas subsequently confirmed receipt of the plan, and will study it with a ¡°seriously positive attitude¡± and formally respond. Netanyahu said on the same day that Israel would step-by-step withdrawal based on Hamas¡¯ release of detainees, the deployment of the ¡°International Stability Forces¡± and the de-militarization of the Gaza Strip, and maintain a security buffer zone along the Gaza Strip in the ¡°foreseeable future.¡±