A Hamas delegation will visit the Egyptian capital Cairo on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire, a Hamas official has told Reuters.
The delegation will reportedly discuss a ceasefire proposal handed by Hamas to mediators Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel’s response.
On Friday, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya said the group had received Israel’s response to its ceasefire proposal and was studying it before handing its response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Prior rounds of talks have failed to bridge the gaps in the two sides’ positions.
Hamas wants an accord for a permanent end to the war and for Israel to pull its forces out of the Gaza Strip.
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Israel has offered only a temporary ceasefire to free about 130 hostages remaining in captivity and to allow the delivery of more humanitarian aid. It has said it will not end its operations until it has achieved its aim of destroying Hamas.
Israel’s foreign minister said on Saturday that a planned incursion into Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, could be suspended should a deal emerge to release the Israeli hostages.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is meeting regional leaders in Saudi Arabia.
Israel’s war on Gaza and broader Middle East tensions are being discussed at the Saudi-hosted special meeting of the World Economic Forum which began on Sunday.
Mr Blinken, Palestinian leaders and high-ranking officials from other countries that are trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are attending the summit in Riyadh, capital of the world’s biggest crude oil exporter.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said at the summit that only the US could stop Israel attacking Rafah, adding he expected an assault on the city in the next days.
“We call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack. America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime,” Mr Abbas told the World Economic Forum meeting.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new truce deal in Gaza since a one-week halt to the fighting in November, when 80 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Egyptian officials have stepped up efforts to mediate talks between Hamas and Israel, after a new proposal that would initially see a small number of hostages held in Gaza released in exchange for Palestinians in the territory to be able to return to their homes. An Egyptian official told Associated Press that mediators were working on a compromise solution to answer both parties’ main concerns, intended to set the stage for further negotiations to end the war entirely.
The US news site Axios said Israeli officials were open to discussing the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from a central corridor that divides the enclave. Discussions around a “sustainable ceasefire” could take place in a second phase of negotiations, after an initial hostage release, it added.
Around 250 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage during the Hamas assault, which killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, in the deadliest single attack in Israel’s history.
In response, Israel launched an assault on Gaza, pledging to destroy Hamas and bring the hostages home. The assault has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Hamas released a new video on Saturday that appeared to show two Israeli hostages who have been held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7th assault on southern Israel.
The video is similarly filmed to previous hostage videos made public by the Islamist group, which Israel has condemned as psychological terrorism.
The two men, identified as Keith Siegel (64) and Omri Miran (47) speak individually in front of a plain background. They send their love to their families and ask to be released.
Mr Miran was taken hostage from his home in the community of Nahal Oz in front of his wife and two young daughters during the Hamas killing spree that sparked the war in Gaza.
Mr Siegel, who is a dual US citizen, was taken captive with his wife from another border town. She was later released during a brief November truce.
The video was published during the Passover holiday, when Jews traditionally celebrate the biblical story of gaining freedom from slavery in Egypt.
At one point Mr Siegel breaks down crying as he recounts celebrating the holiday with his family last year and expressing his hope that they will be reunited.
The release of the video by Hamas is an apparent bid to increase pressure on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to call off a major offensive that would deepen the war in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu has faced increasing calls to reach a truce with the Palestinian militant group amid international concerns about his plans for an attack on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where a million refugees are sheltering.
Israel has long signalled an intention to launch a ground operation in Rafah to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas. Israeli military officials estimate 5,000 to 8,000 Hamas fighters are there, along with some of its leaders, representing the last line of its defence. – Agencies