Lower-level Israeli delegation to attend hostage talks in Doha on Wednesday
Talks also expected at working-group level in Cairo in coming days as mediators try to close gaps; Netanyahu said to exclude top defense officials from preparatory meeting
An Israeli delegation is expected to travel to Doha on Wednesday to attend ongoing negotiations for a hostage release-ceasefire deal after talks in Cairo on Sunday ended with neither Israel nor Hamas agreeing to several compromises presented by mediators who are attempting to bridge the gaps between the two sides.
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the talks, but gave no details on the make-up of the delegation. Hebrew media reported that the delegation headed for Qatar will be made up of working-level officials from the Mossad, the IDF, and the Shin Bet.
The team will continue talks with United States, Qatari and Egyptian mediators with the aim of bridging the remaining gaps in the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, the reports said.
Earlier on Tuesday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that negotiations in Cairo continued even after the Israeli delegation departed on Sunday evening, and, as in Doha, discussions would be held at the “working-group level” over the coming days to iron out specific issues.
While gaps remain between Hamas’s demands and those laid out by Israel, Kirby pushed back against suggestions that the talks had broken down and said, on the contrary, that they were “constructive.”
According to a Channel 12 news report Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held a number of meetings on the talks with Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, who both led the Israeli delegation.
However, high-level military officials were excluded from the meetings, which took place before the team left for Cairo and after they returned, the channel reported amid ongoing tensions between Netanyahu and members of the team.
Maj. Gen. Alon Nitzan, who is also part of the high-level Israeli team, as well as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, were all left out of the meetings, according to the report. The channel cited sources saying some of those excluded believed they were blackballed so Netanyahu could avoid being pressured to soften Israel’s stances.
The Prime Minister’s Office called the report “baseless.”
“The mandate given to the delegation was decided on in consultation with all security officials,” the PMO said in a statement. “The sole decision beyond that in recent days was regarding whether or not to send the delegation for talks” on Sunday, when Hezbollah launched a large-scale attack on the country.
Months of on-off talks have failed to produce an agreement to end the fighting triggered by Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on southern Israel and free the more than 100 remaining hostages held by the Palestinian terror group.
Key sticking points in ongoing talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar include an Israeli presence in the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5-kilometer-long (9-mile-long) stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
Netanyahu has insisted on ongoing Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor to prevent Hamas from rearming, and a mechanism to ensure no return of armed Hamas gunmen to northern Gaza, while Hamas has insisted that any deal must provide for an end to the war and the full withdrawal of IDF troops.
Mediators were reported on Monday to have set aside the issue, at least for the time being, in favor of trying to reach agreements on other matters before returning to it.
Areas of contention that are being discussed were reported by Channel 12 to include Israel’s ability to veto the release of some Palestinian security prisoners and exile others, including convicted murderers, and how many living hostages Israel will get back during the proposed deal’s six-week first phase. The report added that some progress has been made on these issues in recent days.
The more than ten-month-old war in Gaza erupted with the shock Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were slaughtered and 251 were seized as hostages.
It is believed that of that number, 104 hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 30 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
