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Israel and Hamas have continued indirect negotiations over the release of civilian hostages seized by the Palestinian militant group, despite Israeli ground forces moving deeper into the besieged enclave of Gaza.
A Qatari official said the talks, which are being brokered by Doha, were “ongoing” but added that the Israeli ground offensive had complicated the process.
Qatar has been the main facilitator for the negotiations as it is a US ally and hosts Hamas’s political office.
“They are still talking. They are listening,” a person briefed on the talks said. “Of course, it’s not the same pace as it was on Thursday and Friday, but the talks haven’t stopped.” The person cautioned that there were no longer signs of an imminent breakthrough.
Last week mediators were optimistic about being on the brink of a securing an agreement under which Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, would release all civilian captives, three people briefed on the negotiations said.
Israel’s decision to launch an expanded ground assault on Gaza on Friday dashed hopes of an imminent deal, which would have included Israel agreeing to pause its bombardment of the strip for five days and allowing fuel and other aid into the enclave, according to the people.
Israeli forces also on Friday launched the heaviest bombardment of Gaza since the war erupted three weeks ago, following Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on Israeli towns, kibbutzim and military outposts.
The stepped-up offensive, which Israeli officials argue will increase pressure on Hamas to release captives, has, however, heightened concerns among hostages’ families about their relatives’ fate.
Hamas captured more than 230 civilians and soldiers during its October 7 attack and killed more than 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials. The hostages include people with Israeli, US, European and Thai citizenship.
The Islamist group has released two Americans and two Israelis unilaterally over the past 10 days. But the death was confirmed on Monday of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli woman believed to have been abducted by Hamas.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that, while Israel had a right to defend itself, “a humanitarian pause would be a good thing to get hostages out, but you can bet that Hamas will try to use that time to their advantage as well”.
“These are . . . the hard questions that we are trying to pose to Israel as it works to prosecute a campaign against Hamas,” he told CBS.
A western diplomat said “there were high expectations” of a deal at the end of last week. “The parameters were there, but the devil was in the details because there’s no trust between Hamas and Israel,” the diplomat said, adding it would be even harder with a ground offensive under way.
Hamas had offered a staggered release of the hostages, a senior official from the militant group told the Financial Times last week: foreigners would be exchanged for a five-day ceasefire as well as the UN-supervised delivery of food, fuel and medicine to Gaza’s hospitals, but there would be additional conditions to free Israeli civilians.
These would include the release of the wounded to Egypt for treatment via the Rafah border crossing. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed 8,005 people since the war erupted and injured more than 20,000, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails would also be a condition. But Israeli soldiers held captive would be kept for a “prisoner swap” further down the line.
Among the hostages’ families — who have formed the “Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum” to pressure the government to secure their relatives’ release — Israel’s military escalation has raised concerns.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the families on Saturday and vowed to “exercise and exhaust every possibility to bring them home”.
After the meeting, the families’ group said they had told Netanyahu their “unequivocal demand [was] that military action takes into account the fate of the hostages and missing”.
“This is very hard for us,” said Meirav Leshem Gonen, speaking on behalf of the group. “It’s been three weeks since we’ve known what’s become of our loved ones. We all heard about the tanks going in and we’re all worried.”
Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington
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