PM dispatches delegation to Doha but further delays talks on hostage deal’s 2nd phase
Officials say negotiations on second stage won’t start until security cabinet meets on Monday; hostages forum blasts decision by highlighting emaciated state of returning captives
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the dispatch of a delegation to Doha on Saturday to address technical details of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, but he did not authorize the team to discuss the second phase of the agreement, an unnamed Israeli official said.
Negotiations on the second phase of the deal were supposed to have started on Monday, but Netanyahu has delayed the delegation’s departure.
The working-level Israeli delegation was authorized to travel to Qatar for technical discussions after the Hamas terror group released three hostages from Gaza on Saturday morning, and Israel released 183 Palestinian security prisoners under the terms of the first stage of the accord, the unnamed official said.
Senior Israeli officials cited by the Walla news site said that the delegation was being dispatched as a “symbolic warm-up trip,” intended primarily to demonstrate goodwill toward US President Donald Trump, as he has expressed his desire to see the deal carried out in full.
Channel 12 news quoted a senior Israel source saying that the delegation “has no real mandate. [Trump’s envoy Steve] Witkoff asked that a delegation be sent and Netanyahu is doing so, in part to avoid giving Hamas reasons to blow up the deal.” The source stressed that, “because of the condition of the hostages, there is not a second to waste.”
The working-level team being dispatched will include the government’s hostage point man Gal Hirsch, along with a senior Shin Bet official and representatives from Mossad, the Shin Bet and the IDF.
Since the team leaving for Doha does not have a mandate from Israel’s political leadership to discuss the second phase of the deal, negotiations to that end will not begin before Netanyahu returns from his six-day trip to Washington, where he met with Trump and senior US officials.
The premier is slated to depart Washington on Saturday evening, and will convene the security cabinet on Monday, Walla reported. Only then are negotiations on the second phase of the deal expected to begin in earnest.
In a statement on Saturday evening, Netanyahu confirmed that a team was being dispatched to Doha but did not mention negotiations for the second phase of the deal. The premier instead reiterated that Israel will “eliminate Hamas, and we will return our hostages,” without clarifying how both goals will be achieved simultaneously.
“We will do everything to return all our hostages. We will ensure their safety. This is the directive I gave to the delegation,” he said, welcoming the return of Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy, who were released from Hamas captivity on Saturday morning looking weak and gaunt.
“But beyond that, President Trump completely agreed with me: We will do everything to return all of the hostages, but Hamas will not be there. We will eliminate Hamas and we will return our hostages,” continued Netanyahu. “That is the directive, and that is what we’ll do.”
The decision to further push off the talks on the deal’s second phase, which should have started on February 3, coupled with the emaciated state of the three hostages released on Saturday, was met with outrage from the families of the hostages.
“How, after the shocking photos of Eli [Sharabi], Ohad [Ben Ami], and Or [Levy] this morning, is the cabinet not meeting immediately?” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum asked. “What more proof do the decision-makers need to understand the urgency of returning the 76 hostages?”
Addressing Netanyahu, the families urged him to “send a negotiating team to Qatar with a clear and complete mandate — to complete the agreement urgently, until the last hostage, in a manner and on a date agreed upon in advance.”
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official warned in an interview with AFP on Saturday that Israel’s “lack of commitment” to the second phase of the talks was putting the entire ceasefire deal in danger of collapse.
Asked by AFP whether there is a possibility that the terror group will return to war should the ceasefire agreement collapse, Hamas politburo official Basem Naim said that the “delay and lack of commitment in implementing the first phase,” as well as the attempts to “pressure the Palestinian negotiators upon entering the second phase, certainly exposes this agreement to danger and thus it might stop and collapse.”
“The return to war is certainly not our wish or decision,” Naim continued. “But if one party decides to return to war, certainly our Palestinian people who endured for 15 months and have resistance in their heart will be ready to respond appropriately.”
Asked if the terror group knew when the negotiations for the second phase would begin, Naim said Israel was “delaying” the talks and that there was no specific date when they were expected to begin.
“Maybe in the coming days, there may be a start,” he suggested.
Following Saturday’s hostage release, 73 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued alive by troops, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli 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 body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
