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The United States and Qatar signaled on Sunday that they are moving closer to a deal to release a significant number of civilian hostages held by Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Any breakthrough is expected to lead to a multi-day pause in Israel’s offensive against Gaza and a surge in urgently needed aid to the coastal enclave, which is suffering from a worsening humanitarian crisis.
The fate of some 240 hostages has deepened Israelis’ trauma and become a politically sensitive issue for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he pushes the offensive against Hamas, while the prisoners’ families have pressured his government to do more, to secure their freedom.
U.S. deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said Washington believes it is “closer to a final agreement than before,” adding that many areas where there were “previous differences” have been narrowed.
The Biden administration and Israel have resisted growing calls for a ceasefire in the war with Hamas, insisting instead that a pause in Israel’s air and land offensive against Gaza would come only after the Palestinian Islamist group agreed to the release of a large Number of civilian prisoners seized would have agreed in his attack on October 7th.
In a news conference late Sunday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari presented “concrete evidence” that Hamas had hidden at least two hostages at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, where the IDF has been staging its offensive in recent days concentrated.
“The Israeli Defense Forces have a moral obligation to bring each and every one of our hostages home,” Hagari said. “We won’t rest until we do.”
Talks are underway with Qatar, a U.S. ally that hosts Hamas’s political office in Doha, about releasing civilian prisoners. Negotiators had previously thought they were close to an agreement, but the talks collapsed because of disagreements between Israel and Hamas.
White House Middle East adviser Brett McGurk with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar, on Sunday © Qatar News Agency/AFP via Getty ImagesQatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told reporters in Doha on Sunday that “good progress has been made in recent days.” He added that there were still minor obstacles to reaching an agreement between Israel and Hamas.
White House Middle East adviser Brett McGurk told a conference in Bahrain on Saturday that a pause in Israel’s assault on Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid and fuel shipments to Gaza “will occur when the hostages are released.”
According to Israeli officials, Israel has been besieging the Gaza Strip and its forces have pushed deeper into the strip since it launched its offensive after Hamas killed about 1,200 people in its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israeli attacks have killed nearly 11,500 people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said, while UN officials warned of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the strip, home to 2.3 million people and crippling shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine .
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The deal to secure the release of a large number of civilian hostages held by Hamas would see Israel pause its offensive for several days and allow more aid to be delivered to the strip. Hamas is also demanding the release of a number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.
People close to the negotiations say the talks are progressing but continue to hesitate on details. These include Hamas’s demand for a five-day break, Israel’s demand for a shorter break and where released Palestinian prisoners would go, a person briefed on the negotiations said.
“The mantra that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed really applies, and we have no agreement in place yet,” Finer told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “And until that happens, we won’t, you know, provide all the details publicly.”
Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told ABC’s “This Week” that he was confident that a significant number of hostages could be released by Hamas “in the coming days.”