Latest news with #HamasNegotiations
News24
14-07-2025
- Politics
- News24
Gaza mediators working to bridge gaps in Doha talks
Mediators are exploring new ways to bridge gaps in stalled Gaza truce talks. Disagreements over Israeli troop presence in Gaza are blocking progress. Over 58 000 Palestinians and 1 200 Israelis have died since the war began. Mediators are pursuing 'innovative mechanisms' to bridge the gaps between Israeli and Hamas delegations after a week of Gaza truce talks in Qatar, an official with knowledge of the negotiations told AFP on Monday. The indirect talks had appeared deadlocked over the weekend, with each side accusing the other of staking out positions that prevented a deal from being reached. 'Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to help bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,' the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The talks in Doha were focused 'on the proposed maps for the redeployment of Israeli forces within Gaza', the official added. On Saturday, Palestinian sources told AFP that Israel's proposals for keeping troops in the territory were preventing progress towards a deal. Egypt's head of intelligence, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, was also in Doha for the talks, meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to discuss 'ways to coordinate the efforts of the mediators to advance the negotiation process', an official with knowledge of his visit said. At least 58 386 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The war began with Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1 219 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. Of the 251 hostages seized by militants during the attack, 49 are still being held, including 27, the Israeli military says, are dead.
CNA
07-07-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Trump and Netanyahu to meet at the White House for talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington for talks with US President Donald Trump. It will be their third meeting this year and the first since the war between Israel and Iran. It also comes as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas continue in Doha. Trent Murray reports from Tel Aviv.
Khaleej Times
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Gaza truce talks to resume in Doha before Netanyahu heads to US
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are set to resume on Sunday in Doha for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House. Netanyahu had earlier announced he was sending a team to Qatar, a key mediator in the conflict, though he said Hamas's response to a draft US-backed ceasefire deal contained "unacceptable" demands. Under mounting pressure to end the war, now approaching its 22nd month, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet on Monday with US President Donald Trump, who has been making a renewed push to end the fighting. A Palestinian official familiar with the talks and close to Hamas said international mediators had informed the group that "a new round of indirect negotiations... will begin in Doha today". The group's delegation, led by its top negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, had already arrived in the Qatari capital, the official told AFP. On Friday, Hamas had said it was ready "to engage immediately and seriously" in negotiations. Netanyahu, who confirmed Israeli negotiators were also en route, said that "the changes that Hamas is seeking to make in the Qatari proposal... are unacceptable to Israel". Hamas has not publicly disclosed its response to the US-backed proposal, relayed by mediators from Qatar and Egypt. In Tel Aviv on Saturday, protesters gathered for a weekly rally demanding the return of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered the war. Macabit Mayer, the aunt of captives Gali and Ziv Berman, called for a deal "that saves everyone". 'Enough' Two Palestinian sources close to the discussions told AFP the proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel. However, they said, the group was also demanding certain conditions for Israel's withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system. On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said 14 people were killed by Israeli forces on Sunday. The agency said 10 were killed in a pre-dawn strike on Gaza City's Sheikh Radawn neighbourhood, where AFP images showed Palestinians searching through the rubble for survivors with their bare hands. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific strikes without precise coordinates. Sheikh Radawn resident Osama al-Hanawi told AFP: "The rest of the family is still under the rubble." "We are losing young people, families and children every day, and this must stop now. Enough blood has been shed." Since the Hamas attack sparked a massive Israeli offensive with the aim of destroying the group, mediators have brokered two temporary halts in fighting, during which hostages were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Recent efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel's rejection of Hamas's demand for a lasting ceasefire. 'Dying for flour' The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip. Karima al-Ras, from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, said "we hope that a truce will be announced" to allow in more aid. "People are dying for flour," she said. A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, when Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries. UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives. UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said Friday that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points. The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Suddenly Trump Is No Longer Buying What Bibi Has Been Selling
On May 12 an American-Israeli dual citizen and Israeli soldier, Edan Alexander, was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza after direct U.S.-Hamas negotiations that sidestepped Israel. The images that accompanied his release looked like an American operation that just happened to take place in Israel. It was a U.S. hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler — who conducted direct talks with Hamas in March — who accompanied Mr. Alexander's mother on the flight from her home in America to Israel, and it was a U.S. envoy, Steve Witkoff, who handed her a phone to speak with her son at the moment of his release. Headlines highlighted President Trump's phone call with Mr. Alexander. The message was clear: It was Mr. Trump, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who got Israel's soldier out of Gaza. This is not the Trump administration that Mr. Netanyahu had so eagerly anticipated. On almost every significant strategic and geopolitical issue that matters to Israel — from seeking a new nuclear deal with Iran to a cease-fire with the Houthis, from embracing the new Syrian regime to negotiating directly with Hamas on hostage release — Mr. Trump is not only bypassing Israel but also moving in a very different direction from what Mr. Netanyahu would have chosen. The U.S. administration has sidelined Israel again and again. In so doing, Mr. Trump and his team have managed to expose Israel's policy of destruction and the failings of Israel's leader, whose lone success has been staying in power through pursuing constant war. That doesn't mean that there is an open crisis between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu or that Israel has lost the United States as its most powerful ally or even that Mr. Trump will force Israel to stop the war in Gaza. Indeed, in Gaza the United States has mostly left the Netanyahu coalition to its own devices. When the prime minister sat down with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in February, after a cease-fire in Gaza was imposed on Mr. Netanyahu, he and his far-right coalition received the gift of Mr. Trump's Gaza Riviera idea — which lent legitimacy to the idea of mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. The Trump administration has since provided further support and weapons to Israel, including the 2,000-pound bombs that President Joe Biden had restricted, and reportedly floated the idea of transferring one million Palestinians to Libya. But Mr. Trump talks about putting 'an end to this very brutal war,' while Mr. Netanyahu is now openly promising to 'take control of all parts of Gaza' and 'complete victory.' Since Israel broke the cease-fire in March, more than 3,000 Gazans have been killed, many of them civilians. Israel's policy has starved the remaining two million people of Gaza, which Mr. Trump acknowledged as he departed the Persian Gulf region on May 16, even as he did not prevent it from happening. And Israel is not any closer to victory. On May 18, after more than two months of freezing all aid into Gaza on the allegation that Hamas has been profiting from it, Mr. Netanyahu grudgingly approved the immediate entry of nominal aid after the United States and the Israeli military warned that the strip is on the brink of mass starvation. Now Britain, France and Canada have issued a statement threatening punitive action, including sanctions on Israel, if it does not stop its renewed military offensive and immediately let more aid in. Mr. Netanyahu is increasingly in a corner. He can no longer blame his inability to defeat Hamas on the Biden administration for restricting him on Gaza. Nor can he blame his defense minister or army chief of staff or those leading the negotiating team — all of whom he recently replaced — or even a top Hamas leader, Muhammad Sinwar, whom Israel is reported to have targeted on May 13. There is a crisis among reservist soldiers experiencing a combination of fatigue and lack of motivation for an operation they don't believe will achieve its goals, compounded by ultra-Orthodox coalition partners demanding a law to exempt their constituents from military service. A majority of the Israeli public and a critical mass of former heads of Israel's security establishment favor a hostage deal to end the war. They have turned directly to lobbying Mr. Trump, hoping he might force Mr. Netanyahu's hand, as the president did to secure the release of Mr. Alexander. It appears that the White House finally sees Mr. Netanyahu for what he is: a weak Israeli leader with seemingly little or nothing to offer Mr. Trump, who appears more interested in trade, business and a Nobel Peace Prize than in continuing to fund an endless war. That is quite a shift. After Mr. Trump won the election, Mr. Netanyahu saw an ally coming into the White House. This was, after all, the same president who recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in his first term. And it is the same president who, since retaking office, protected Mr. Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest by imposing sanctions on the court and overseeing an aggressive campaign to repress free speech and dismantle pro-Palestinian activism in the United States. Now it is the president who has left Mr. Netanyahu looking more isolated, humiliated and inept than ever before. A few months ago, Israel appeared to be making historic gains in its decades-long battle for hegemony in the Middle East: It had crushed Hezbollah in Lebanon, left Iran vulnerable and contributed to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. These days, Israel is a shell of itself. The country is left with a military with vast capabilities and resources adept at surveillance and destruction and a leader who has mastered the art of political survival by crushing dissent and manipulating narratives. Mr. Netanyahu's coalition of far-right settlers and ultra-Orthodox Jews is sticking together because they have nowhere else to go. Whether Mr. Trump will finally compel Mr. Netanyahu to end the war on Gaza is still very much in question, but Israel's ability to steer the conversation or shape the terms of regional dynamics has been significantly diminished by its dead-end campaign. What Mr. Netanyahu is selling — a zero-sum victory over Hamas and with no guarantee of returning the remaining hostages — no longer has any buyers. These days he seems trapped. But he is also a master of self-preservation. The question is how he will get himself out of it this time and how many more lives it will cost.
