Israel and Hamas making progress in cease-fire and hostage talks, officials say
Israel and Hamas are making progress toward another cease-fire and hostage-release deal, officials said Tuesday, as negotiations went on and Israel threatened to expand its offensive to Gaza’s southern edge, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
The talks continued in Egypt a day after Israeli forces rescued two captives in Rafah, the packed southern town on the Egyptian border, in a raid that killed at least 74 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and caused heavy destruction. The operation offered a glimpse of what a fullblown ground advance might look like.
A cease-fire deal, on the other hand, would give people in Gaza a desperately needed respite from the war, now in its fifth month, and offer freedom for at least some of the estimated 100 hostages still in Gaza. Qatar, the United States and Egypt have sought to broker a deal in the face of starkly disparate positions expressed publicly by Israel and Hamas.
Israel has made destroying Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and freeing the hostages the main goals of its war, which was launched after thousands of Hamas-led militants rampaged inside southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 people captive. Tens of thousands of
Israelis were displaced from destroyed communities.
The war has brought unprecedented destruction to the Gaza Strip, with more than 28,000 people killed, more than 70% of them women and minors, according to local health officials. Vast swaths of the territory have been flattened by Israel’s offensive, around 80% of the population has been displaced, and a humanitarian catastrophe has pushed more than a quarter of the population toward starvation.
South Africa, which has lodged genocide allegations against Israel at the International Court of Justice, said Tuesday that it filed an “urgent request” with the court to consider whether Israel’s military operations in Rafah constitute a breach of provisional orders handed down by the justices last month. Those orders called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians.
Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations and says it operates in accordance with international law. It blames Hamas for the high death toll because the militants operate in dense residential areas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on until “total victory” and has insisted that military pressure will help free the hostages. But the rescued hostages, Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were just the second and third captives to be freed by the military since the war began.
Other Israeli officials have said only a deal can bring about the release of large numbers of hostages.
During a weeklong truce last year, over 100 were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Three hostages were killed erroneously by Israeli forces in December, and one female Israeli soldier was freed in a rescue mission in the early weeks of the war. Israeli officials say around 30 hostages taken on Oct. 7 have died, either during the initial attack or in captivity.
BRIDGING THE GAPS
A senior Egyptian official said mediators have made “relatively significant” progress ahead of a meeting Tuesday in Cairo of representatives of Qatar, the U.S. and Israel.
The official said the meeting would focus on “crafting a final draft” of a sixweek cease-fire deal, with guarantees that the parties would continue talks toward a permanent ceasefire.
CIA chief William Burns and David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, attended the Cairo talks. Both men played a key role in brokering the previous ceasefire.
A Western diplomat in the Egyptian capital also said a six-week deal was on the table but cautioned that more work was needed to reach an agreement. The diplomat said the meeting Tuesday would be crucial in bridging the remaining gaps.
Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.
While the officials did not disclose the precise details of the emerging deal, the sides have been discussing varying proposals for weeks.
Israel has proposed a two-month cease-fire in which hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and top Hamas leaders in Gaza would be allowed to relocate to other countries.
Hamas rejected those terms. It laid out a threephase plan of 45 days each in which the hostages would be released in stages, Israel would free hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians, including senior militants, and the war would wind down, with Israel withdrawing its troops. That was viewed as a non-starter by Israel, which wants to topple Hamas before ending the war.
But President Joe Biden signaled Monday that a deal might be within reach.
“The key elements of the deal are on the table,” Biden said alongside visiting Jordanian King Abdullah II, adding, “there are gaps that remain.” He said the U.S. would do “everything possible” to bring about an agreement.
DEATH TOLL MOUNTS
The signs of progress came despite ongoing fighting.
Palestinians were still counting the dead after Israel’s hostage rescue mission as the death toll climbed Tuesday to 74. Residents and displaced Palestinians in Gaza were searching through the rubble from Israeli airstrikes that provided cover for the rescue mission.