The most recent round of the talks about the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has so far made no progress, and it was unclear whether the talks would be resumed on Saturday, said a high -ranking official from Hamas.
In the first phase of the ceasefire, in which 15 months fought in the Gaza Strip, 33 hostages, including eight corpses, were published in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The first phase runs on Saturday, but in the context of the contractual conditions it is not to resume the fighting, while negotiations in the second phase are in progress, which could end the war in Gaza and see that the remaining living hostages have returned home.
Officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United States were involved in negotiations on the second phase in Cairo in order to put an end to the war with the return of all remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Hamas did not take part in the conversations, but its position was represented by Egyptian and Qataric mediators. Basem Naim, a member of the political office of Hamas, told The Associated Press that there was “no progress” in the search for a solution before the Israeli negotiators returned home on Friday.
It was unclear whether these mediators would return to Cairo on Saturday to resume the talks, and Naim said he “had no idea” if the negotiations could start again.
Israeli and Hamas officials say that the latest discussion about the exchange of prisoners and hostages has been solved by Egyptian mediators. The Gaza Waffe Arrest contract was resolved on the same day as the Young Bibas family was buried after the handover of its bodies last week.
Hamas began the war with its October 7, 2023, which gave 1,200 deaths in Israel. Since then, the military offensive of Israel has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health officer who did not differentiate between civilian and combative deaths, but say that more than half of the dead women and children were.
In January, the two sides voted the three-phase arms arrest to put an end to the war.
On Friday, Hamas said that “its full commitment to the implementation of all conditions of the agreement in all phases and details” and asked the international community to put Israel under pressure to “continue immediately without delay or alternate”.
In addition to phase two of the ceasefire, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that mediators in the conversations “also discussed ways to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip as part of the efforts to relieve suffering and to support stability in the region.”
Hamas has rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire by 42 days, and explained that it understood it against the ceasefire contract, according to a member of the group who applied for anonymity to discuss the negotiations for closed doors.
The Israeli proposal provides for the ceasefire to extend the ceasefire by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, who started on Saturday in return for an additional exchange credit, said the Hamas member.
The UN -Food Agency, the World Food Program, said on Saturday in a contribution on social media that it reached a million Palestinians throughout Gaza in the first phase of the deal.
The break in fighting contributed to “restoring sales points, reopening bakeries and expanding the money aid,” said the agency.
“The ceasefire has to hold,” he said. “It can’t return.”
