A new round of Gaza ceasefire talks was underway in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday, an official briefed on the meeting told Reuters, with Israel’s spy chief joining his US and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for the closed-door meeting.
The talks, an effort to end 10 months of fighting in the Palestinian enclave and bring 115 Israeli and foreign hostages home, were put together as Iran appeared on the point of retaliating against Israel following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
With US warships, submarines and warplanes dispatched to the region to defend Israel and deter potential attackers, Washington is hoping a ceasefire agreement in Gaza can defuse the risk of a full-out wider regional war.
Hamas officials, who have accused Israel of stalling, did not join the talks on Thursday.
However, mediators planned to consult with Hamas’s Doha-based negotiating team after the meeting, the official briefed on the talks told Reuters.
Israel’s delegation included spy chief David Barnea, head of the domestic security service Ronen Bar, and the military’s hostages chief Nitzan Alon, defence officials said on Wednesday.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war which broke out more than 10 months ago has taken an appalling human toll.
More than 40000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian territory in Israel’s retaliatory campaign for the October 7 attack which triggered the war, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The unprecedented Hamas raid on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1198 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Pressure for a truce deal is building to stop the spread of a war that threatens the Middle East region.
In a veiled warning to Iran, Hamas and Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said: “No party in the region should take actions that would undermine efforts to reach a deal.”
In a telephone call, the two discussed “efforts to calm” regional tensions “and the importance of finalising a ceasefire in Gaza”, it said.
The US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have invited Israel and Hamas for the truce negotiations. Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon,
Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
In Beirut on Wednesday, visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said he and Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri agreed “there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay”.
Berri is an ally of Lebanon’s Iran backed Hezbollah movement which has exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces in what Hezbollah says is support for Hamas.
Hochstein said a deal in Gaza “would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war”.
“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions.
“That time is now.”
A similar message came earlier this week from France, Germany and Britain which jointly said there could be “no further delay” in reaching a Gaza truce.
Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since a week-long truce in November when militants released dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Hamas officials, some analysts and critics of Israel have said that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.
Israeli media this week quoted Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a deal to release hostages still held in Gaza “is stalling ... in part because of Israel”.
Netanyahu’s office lashed back, accusing the defence minister of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and saying Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.
Cape Times