Israel, Hamas making progress in talks, officials say

| February 14, 2024

Israel and Hamas are making progress toward another cease-fire and hostage release deal, officials have said, as talks continued in Egypt on Tuesday, with Israel threatening to expand its offensive to Gaza’s southern edge, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

Israeli forces rescued two captives held in the packed southern city of Rafah along the Egyptian border on Monday in a raid that killed at least 74 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and caused heavy destruction, offering a glimpse of what a full-blown ground advance would look like.

A cease-fire deal, on the other hand, would give people in Gaza a desperately needed respite from the war, now in its fifth month, and offer freedom for at least some of the estimated 100 people still held captive in Gaza. 

Qatar, the United States and Egypt have sought to broker a deal in the face of starkly disparate positions expressed publicly by both Israel and Hamas.

Israel has made destroying Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and freeing the hostages the main goals of its war, which was launched after thousands of Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 people captive. 

Tens of thousands of Israelis were displaced from destroyed communities.

The war has wrought unprecedented destruction to the Gaza Strip, with more than 28,000 people killed, more than 70 per cent of them women and minors, according to local health officials. 

South Africa, which has lodged genocide allegations against Israel at the International Court of Justice, said on Thursday that it filed an “urgent request” with the court to consider whether Israel’s military operations in Rafah constitute a breach of provisional orders handed down by the justices last month calling on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians.

Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations and says it is carrying out operations in accordance with international law. It blames Hamas for the high death toll because the militants operate in dense residential areas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on until “total victory,” and has insisted that military pressure will help free the hostages. But the rescued hostages, Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were just the second and third captives to be freed by the military since the war erupted.

Other Israeli officials have said only a deal can bring about the release of large numbers of hostages. 

Over 100 were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a week-long truce last year. Three hostages were killed erroneously by Israeli forces in December and one female Israeli soldier was freed in a rescue mission in the early weeks of the war. 

Israeli officials say around 30 hostages taken on October 7 have died, either during the initial attack or in captivity. 

A senior Egyptian official said mediators have achieved “relatively significant” progress in the negotiations ahead of a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday of representatives from Qatar, the US and Israel, which sent the head of its Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea.

The Egyptian official said the meeting would focus on “crafting a final draft” of a six-week cease-fire deal, with guarantees that the parties would continue negotiations toward a permanent cease-fire.

A Western diplomat in the Egyptian capital also said a six-week deal was on the table but cautioned that more work is still needed to reach an agreement. 

The diplomat said the meeting Tuesday would be crucial in bridging the remaining gaps.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.

While the officials did not disclose the precise details of the emerging deal, the sides have been discussing varying proposals for weeks.