Report: Sinwar’s deputy is at hostage talks in Qatar; Israeli team set to stay several days

The Israeli delegation is continuing negotiations tonight on a hostage-truce deal in Qatar, and the process is advancing, Channel 12 reports.

The talks involve not only delegations from Israel, the US, Qatar and Egypt, but also a Hamas delegation including Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Mashaal, and Khalil al-Haya, a deputy to Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the report says.

Channel 12, echoing an earlier report from the Walla news site, says there are major differences on the issue of how many and which Palestinian security prisoners would be freed — prompting the US to present a compromise proposal. The original Paris framework from last month provided for 400 security prisoners to be freed for 40 hostages — women, children, the sick and elderly — in the first phase of a deal. The new US compromise is “more generous” for Hamas, but has been accepted by Israel, says Channel 12. The teams are now waiting for a response from Gaza, which could take hours or days.

Mossad chief David Barnea and the rest of the Israeli team are likely to stay in Doha for several days, and indeed may remain there all week, the TV report says.

The report also says that the war cabinet, when authorizing some limited leeway for the Israeli team before its departure on Friday, empowered the negotiators to discuss the process of civilian evacuees from northern Gaza to return.

The report says these are among the key issues to be resolved for a deal to take place, but makes no mention of the Hamas condition to date that any further hostage releases be accompanied by an Israeli commitment to end the war — a demand Israel has rejected as “delusional.”