Top Israeli official: No active hostage talks taking place, high-intensity fighting will continue in subsequent phases of war

A senior Israeli official says there are currently no active negotiations for a new hostage release agreement with Hamas, but notes that Israeli officials have met twice this week with Qatari officials to discuss a new framework for such a deal.

“At the moment, we don’t have a negotiation, but there is some kind of progress in the fact that we have met with the Qataris twice already in the last week, and we made clear to everybody in Israel and outside of Israel that it’s time to renew the shaping up of a new hostages [release] structure,” the official says in a briefing with foreign press.

Israeli and US officials say Hamas has yet to respond positively to efforts to restart negotiations. Hamas says it won’t negotiate as fighting continues and will only agree to release hostages if there’s a permanent ceasefire.

The senior Israeli official says the previous agreement worked well, and says Israel is now ready to discuss new stages for hostage releases in order to return all of them to Israel.

Asked when Israel will switch to lower-intensity fighting in Gaza, the official said there was no timetable for such a move, and that both low- and high-level combat operations would continue in accordance with the IDF’s operational needs and determinations.

“We have to eradicate Hamas, Hamas cannot stay no matter in what shape or form. There are areas where we haven’t been working at all, so when we go there you will see very high-intensity operations in places where we haven’t been able to get to till now. In places where the operation is over and there is a decisive victory we won’t need high-intensity operations anymore.”