‘Gaps” in Search for Gaza Ceasefire

Jerusalem: Israel says “gaps” remain with Hamas on how to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release but that it will send a delegation for fresh talks with Qatari mediators next week.

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman came after a delegation led by the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, held a first round of talks with mediators in Doha on Saturday.

“It was agreed that next week Israeli negotiators will travel to Doha to continue the talks. There are still gaps between the parties,” the spokesman said.

There has been no truce in the nine-month-old war in Gaza since a one-week pause in November saw the release of 80 Israeli hostages and 240 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

The US, which has worked with Qatar and Egypt to broker a deal, said Israel and Hamas have a “pretty significant opening” to reach an agreement.

The Gaza war – which has raised fears of a broader conflagration involving Lebanon – began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1195 people, mostly civilians. The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel has responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,011 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians.

US President Joe Biden announced a pathway to a truce deal in May, which he said had been proposed by Israel. It included an initial six-week truce, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza population centres and the freeing of hostages by Palestinian militants.

Talks subsequently stalled but a US official said the new proposal from Hamas “moves the process forward and may provide the basis for closing the deal”, though “significant work” remained.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said new ideas from the group had been “conveyed by mediators to the American side, which welcomed them and passed them on to the Israeli side. Now the ball is in the Israeli court”.