Women, children, the sick
This list “was not provided by Israel to Hamas, but initially by Israel to the mediators (of the negotiations) in July 2024,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Monday.
“Israel has not yet received confirmation or response from Hamas on the conditions in which the hostages mentioned on the list are found,” he stressed.
The Hamas official specified that the list in question included “all women, the sick, children and the elderly” among the Israeli hostages.
“Hamas and the resistance groups need about a week of calm to communicate with the kidnappers and identify the (hostages) dead or alive,” he added.
No truce concluded since 2023
The Israeli army and emergency services announced that three Israelis were killed Monday in shootings at a bus and vehicles near a village in the occupied West Bank, where violence has exploded since the start of the war in the Strip. from Gaza almost fifteen months ago.
Despite intense diplomatic efforts led under the aegis of Qatar, Egypt and the United States, no truce has been concluded since that of a week at the end of November 2023, which allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The new round of negotiations in Doha comes about two weeks before the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, who has already put pressure on Hamas. The current head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, said Monday that he was “confident” that an agreement could be found, even if “the finish line” might not be crossed “in the next two weeks”.
According to Israeli media, the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, David Barnea, was to join negotiators sent by his country in Qatar on Monday.
Permanent ceasefire or not?
Among the main sticking points so far have been the permanent nature or not of a ceasefire and the governance of Gaza after the war, Israel categorically opposing Hamas being able to rule the territory again.
The Families Forum, the main association of relatives of Israeli hostages, called for an agreement to be reached as quickly as possible for their release: “There is no more time to lose.”
