Hamas captures 253 people in cross-border killings in southern Israel on October 7
Cairo, Egypt:
A Hamas official said on Monday that no progress had been made in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo, which also involved delegations from Israel, Qatar and the United States, shortly after Egyptian sources said there was progress on the agenda.
Western powers have expressed anger over an unacceptably high death toll of Palestinian civilians and a humanitarian crisis in Gaza triggered by Israeli military attacks to destroy Hamas in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday, following the arrival of CIA Director William Burns on Saturday. Burns’ arrival underscores growing pressure from the United States to reach a deal to free Gaza hostages and provide aid to stricken civilians.
“There is no change in the position of the occupying forces, so there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “There has been no progress yet.”
Earlier on Monday, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Qahera news television channel quoted a senior Egyptian source as saying progress had been made after delegations reached an agreement on the issues being discussed.
Six months after Israel launched an offensive against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas that wreaked havoc in Gaza, leaving most of its 2.3 million people homeless and many facing famine, Israel also expressed caution about the latest mediation talks optimism.
In Jerusalem over the weekend, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the Cairo talks the closest the two sides have come to an agreement since a truce in November that saw Hamas release dozens of hostages.
“Our negotiations have reached a critical moment. If the negotiations are successful, a large number of hostages will come home,” he told Israel Army Radio.
On October 7, Hamas launched a cross-border massacre in southern Israel and captured 253 people, triggering the war. Of those, 129 remain alive, and negotiators say about 40 will be released in the first phase of an expected deal with Hamas.
Two Egyptian security sources and Al-Qahera News said talks in Cairo were progressing.
Security sources said both sides had made concessions that could help pave the way for a ceasefire at parallel meetings with mediators on Sunday.
The concessions involved the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and demands from Palestinian groups for displaced residents to return to northern Gaza, they added, without giving further details.
Consultations are expected to continue over the next 48 hours, Al-Qahera reported.
Hamas calls main demands inflexible
A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters that the stalemate continues because of Israel’s refusal to end the war, withdraw its troops from Gaza, allow hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to return home and lift a 17-year blockade. Allows for fast rebuilding.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the steps took precedence over Israel’s overarching demand for the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
“Hamas has been and is willing to be more flexible when it comes to prisoner exchanges, but there is no flexibility in our … main demands,” he told Reuters.
Israel has ruled out ending the war or withdrawing its troops from Gaza in the short term, saying its forces will not relax until Hamas no longer controls Gaza or poses a military threat to Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not give in to Hamas’s “extreme” demands.
But Israeli officials have expressed a willingness to allow some Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza to return there.
According to Israeli statistics, Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 33,100 Gazan Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s response. The military says more than 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in Gaza.
Israel said on Sunday it had withdrawn more from southern Gaza amid international pressure to ease Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and not carry out plans to attack the southern town of Rafah, a city home to one million displaced people. Soldier.
Only one brigade remains there, but Defense Minister Yove Galant said the troops would prepare for future military operations, including “their upcoming mission in the Rafah area.”
A day after Israeli troops retreated from the heart of a residential neighborhood in the southern city of Khan Younis after months of bombings and attacks, Palestinian medics said they had recovered the bodies of eight more people shot dead by Israel. The day before, they recovered 12 bodies from the rubble.
But a few miles south on the border with Egypt, residents of Rafah, the last Palestinian refuge for Israeli ground forces, said at least five Israeli airstrikes hit parts of the city, injuring many.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
