Israel Negotiators in Gaza talks show cautious optimism

While the indirect negotiations in Cairo over the release of Israeli hostages in the Gaza war continue, the bloodshed in the sealed-off coastal strip shows no signs of abating.

According to Palestinian emergency services, the bodies of 60 Palestinians killed in the Shejaiya neighborhood in eastern Gaza were pulled from the rubble. Israel's army ended a two-week operation there on Wednesday and, according to its own account, killed dozens of Islamist Hamas fighters and destroyed eight tunnels.

The claims of the various sides could not be independently verified. According to the Hamas-controlled civil defense, the Israeli military destroyed 85 percent of the residential buildings in Shejaiya. "The district is now a disaster area that is no longer habitable," the organization said in a statement. Meanwhile, Israel's military continued its operations against the Islamist militia in several places in the Gaza Strip.

The indirect negotiations on a hostage agreement, which have been ongoing for months, are to continue in Cairo. A delegation from the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet and the Israeli army is traveling to the Egyptian capital, according to the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. Israel is not negotiating directly with Hamas; Egypt, Qatar and the USA are acting as mediators.

The slow-moving talks are about the exchange of the remaining hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and ways to achieve a lasting ceasefire in the Gaza war. Hamas is demanding that Israel end the war quickly. Israel, on the other hand, wants to keep the option of military intervention in Gaza open even after the hostages have been released.

Cautious optimism

Due to the conflicting views, the negotiation process recently came to a standstill and only recently resumed after Hamas showed flexibility in some of its positions, according to media reports. After a final round on Wednesday in the Qatari capital Doha, some participants showed cautious optimism. "We see progress. We see the possibility of an agreement being reached," said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington. "We can't guarantee that," he added. "There are still a lot of details to be hammered out." Israeli government officials had previously expressed similar views. "We are close to an agreement on the principles of a deal," the Israeli TV station Channel 13 quoted one of them as saying.

At his closing press conference at the NATO summit in Washington, US President Joe Biden also expressed optimism. "The trend is positive," he said. Both sides had agreed to a plan he had presented. Now it was a matter of working out the details.

Netanyahu and Hamas still on a collision course

The decision-makers on both sides, however, are sticking to their irreconcilable positions, at least outwardly. "The murderers from Hamas are still clinging to demands that contradict the basic features (of a hostage agreement) and jeopardize Israel's security," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a ceremony marking the end of a training year for officers.

Netanyahu reiterated his demands that Israel would continue the war and militarily occupy strategic locations in the Gaza Strip even after the release of the hostages. The Hamas leadership, in turn, accused him of "delaying" and "sabotaging" the ongoing negotiations. The Islamists also claimed in a statement that they had received no information from the mediators about the results of the talks with the Israeli side.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people killed by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups in Israel on October 7, 2023. They also took 250 people hostage in Gaza.

After more than nine months of war, Israel has come under international criticism for the many casualties among the Palestinian population and the immense damage to buildings and infrastructure in the sealed-off coastal strip.

According to a recent report by the Hamas-controlled health authority, 38,345 Palestinians have been killed so far and a further 88,295 injured. The figures make no distinction between civilians and armed fighters and cannot be independently verified.