Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the foreign intelligence agency Mossad to negotiate a ceasefire in Qatar, his office said on Saturday, a sign of progress in talks over the war in Gaza.
It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital Doha for the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the militant Hamas group. His presence means there are now senior Israeli officials involved who would have to sign off on any deal.
In the 15 months of war, only one short ceasefire was achieved, in the first weeks of fighting. Since then, the talks brokered by the USA, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled.
Netanyahu insisted on destroying Hamas’s ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the largely destroyed area.
On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said more than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed in the war, most of them women and children. However, it is not stated how many of them were fighters or civilians.
In addition, the head of the Israeli secret service Shin Bet and military and political advisors will be sent to Qatar. Netanyahu’s office said the decision was the result of a meeting with his defense minister, security chiefs and negotiators “on behalf of the outgoing and incoming US administrations.”
The office also released a photo showing Netanyahu with Steve Witkoff, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming special envoy to the Middle East, who was in Qatar this week.
The families of around 100 hostages still held in Gaza after their capture in the Oct. 7, 2023, militant attack that sparked the war are urging Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring their loved ones home.
The recovery of the bodies of two hostages last week heightened fears that time is running out. Hamas said it was not sure who was still alive or dead after months of fierce fighting.
“Return with an agreement that ensures the return of all hostages down to the last one – the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial in their homeland,” said a statement from a group representing the families of some hostages.
Israel said Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages to Gaza in the attack that sparked the war. A ceasefire in November 2023 freed more than 100 hostages, while more were rescued or their remains recovered last year. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants in its offensive, without providing evidence.
Israel says it has carried out airstrikes on dozens of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, killing nearly 100 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel and Hamas are also under pressure from outgoing US President Joe Biden and Trump to reach an agreement before his inauguration on January 20.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that a deal was “very close” and he hoped to finalize it before handing over diplomacy to the new Trump administration. But U.S. officials have expressed similar optimism several times in the past year.
Topics at the talks included determining which hostages would be released in the first part of a phased ceasefire agreement, which Palestinian prisoners would be released and the extent of Israeli troop withdrawals from Gaza’s population centers.
In the Gaza Strip
On Saturday, an airstrike killed a five-year-old girl and two male relatives in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an Associated Press team saw them.
The girl’s body, wearing a pink sweater, was wrapped in foil and placed on the morgue floor. Her father knelt and pressed his face to hers. “God!” he cried.
Another Israeli airstrike killed at least eight Palestinians, including two children and two women, at a school in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense. It said 30 other people, including 19 children, were also injured in the strike at the Halawa school, which houses displaced people in the Jabaliya area.
Amnesty International has accused the State of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a new report. Israel vehemently rejected this accusation and said it had respected international law.
The Israeli military said it attacked a Hamas command center at a former school in Jabaliya, without providing details.
According to civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal, four people were killed in an attack on a street in Gaza City. In total, at least 32 bodies arrived in hospitals in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
“I ask the world: Do you hear us? “Do we exist?” said Hamza Saleh, one of the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million displaced residents. He spoke in the southern city of Khan Younis on Friday as children and others scrambled for food aid as hunger grew.
