Israel and Hamas prepared for indirect negotiations in Egypt on Monday, as hopes for a possible ceasefire began to build and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a truce and hostage release could take shape this week.
The peace talks are scheduled just a day before the 2-year mark of the devastating war triggered by the massive Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
The negotiations will take place after US President Donald Trump welcomed the Palestinian militant group’s statement that it has accepted some elements of the American plan. Israel had previously said it supported the new US effort to end the war.
Egypt will host delegations from Israel and Hamas on Monday to discuss the proposed exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, the country’s foreign ministry said, as per an Associated Press report via Press Trust of India.
US envoy Steve Witkoff is also joining the talks, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief reporters.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the current situation is “the closest we’ve come to getting all of the hostages released”.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, he described two phases after Hamas accepts Trump’s framework: the hostages are released and Israel pulls back to the “yellow line,” where it was in August 2024.
International support for a ceasefire grows
The foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority countries issued a joint statement on Sunday, welcoming steps towards a possible ceasefire.
In backing Hamas’ willingness to hand over the running of Gaza to a transitional committee, the ministers called for an “immediate launch of negotiations to agree on mechanisms to implement the proposal”.
They also underlined their commitment to the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, unifying Gaza and the West Bank, and reaching an agreement on security leading to a “full Israeli withdrawal” from Gaza.
Marco Rubio noted that these decisions regarding a governing structure or international group to manage Gaza can take place simultaneously with the first step of the ceasefire, an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
“That’s the part that I think is going to be a little tougher to work through, but that’s what’s going to provide permanency to the end of the conflict,” he said.
12 killed in Gaza as strikes continue
Trump has also told Israel to stop bombing Gaza, but residents and local hospitals said strikes continued across the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
“While certain bombings have actually stopped inside of the Gaza Strip, there’s no ceasefire in place at this point in time,” Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Badrosian told journalists.
She also said Netanyahu is in “regular contact” with Trump and that the prime minister has stressed that the talks in Egypt “will be confined to a few days maximum, with no tolerance for manoeuvres that will delay talks by Hamas”.
At least eight people were killed on Sunday in multiple strikes in the city, according to the Shifa hospital, which received the casualties. Half of them were killed in a strike that hit a group of people in Gaza City, the hospital said.
Four people also were killed in a shooting near an aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, according to Nasser hospital. The Israeli military said it was not involved in the shooting and did not immediately comment on the strikes.
“We’re on the brink, and we don’t know whether one will die of a strike or starvation,” said Mahmoud Hashem, a Palestinian father of five, who is forced to shelter in a tent in the centre of Gaza City.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll in the war reached 67,139 on Sunday, with nearly 170,000 injured. The Health Ministry does not differentiate how many of those killed were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up about half of the dead.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the UN and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it is continuing to work to dismantle Hamas infrastructure across the strip and warned residents not to return to northern Gaza.
Rubio said the US will look into Israel’s operations over the weekend, because Israel cannot be engaged in active combat if they are moving towards a deal. “The Israelis have said that they would only deal with imminent threats, so we’ll look into any of that, because that’s going to be a key component,” he said.
“We have to make sure Hamas is also doing their part in this regard. But, there are a lot of opportunities here for whoever wants to sabotage it to do so,” he added.
