Delegations from Israel and Hamas began indirect negotiations in Egypt yesterday that the US hopes will bring a halt to the war in Gaza, facing contentious issues such as demands that Israel pull out of the enclave and Hamas to disarm.
Israel and Hamas have both endorsed the overall principles behind President Donald Trump’s plan, under which fighting would cease, hostages go free and aid pour into Gaza, the closest they have come to an end to fighting.
The plan also has the backing of Arab and Western states. Trump has called for negotiations to take place swiftly towards a final deal, in what Washington hails as the closest the sides have yet come to ending the fighting.
“I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” Trump said in a social media post.
But both sides are seeking clarifications of crucial details, including over issues that have wrecked all previous attempts to end the war and could defy any quick resolution.
Trump has told Israel to suspend its bombing of Gaza for the talks. Gaza residents said Israel had scaled back its offensive substantially, although it had not halted it altogether.
Gaza health authorities reported 19 people killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, around a third the typical daily toll of recent weeks when Israel has been mounting one of its biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City.
Egyptian state TV reported that the talks had begun at the Red Sea resort of Sharm Al Sheikh.
The talks commenced on the eve of the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war.
Egyptian sources said Hamas was seeking clarification of several details, including guarantees that Israel would follow through with promises to withdraw its troops from Gaza once the fighters give up their leverage by freeing their hostages.
With Israeli forces blasting their way through Gaza City and flattening neighbourhoods as they advance, Gaza residents say a ceasefire now is their last hope that the enclave will emerge habitable.
Inside Israel there is clamour for an end to the war to bring home hostages, although right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet oppose any halt to fighting.
Though Trump says he wants a deal quickly, an official briefed on the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the round of talks kicking off yesterday required at least a few days.
An official involved in ceasefire planning and a Palestinian source said Trump’s deadline to send all hostages back within 72 hours could be impossible to meet in the case of bodies of dead hostages, some of which would need to be located and recovered from burial sites scattered across the battlefield.
A Palestinian official close to the talks was sceptical about prospects of a breakthrough given deep mutual mistrust, saying Hamas and other Palestinian factions were worried that Israel might ditch negotiations once it recovered the hostages.
A thorny issue is likely to be the Israeli demand, echoed in Trump’s plan, that Hamas disarm, a Hamas source told Reuters. The group has insisted it will not disarm unless Israel ends its occupation and a Palestinian state is created.
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