Pressure is mounting for a Gaza ceasefire as talks resumed Thursday in Qatar, aiming to stop the spread of a war that the territory’s Health Ministry said has killed 40,000.
A source with knowledge of the talks confirmed to AFP that they had begun in the Qatari capital Doha.
The source did not disclose whether Hamas had dispatched any delegates to the talks which Israel and CIA director William Burns planned to attend.
In a veiled warning to Iran, Hamas and Israel ahead of the meetings, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said “no party in the region should take actions that would undermine efforts to reach a deal,” the US State Department said.
In a telephone call, the two discussed “efforts to calm ‘regional tensions’ and the importance of finalizing a ceasefire in Gaza,” it said.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators invited Israel and Hamas for negotiations focused on ending the war that the Health Ministry in Gaza on Thursday said has killed 40,005 people in the coastal territory.
Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel have said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.
Israeli media this week quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling… in part because of Israel.”
Netanyahu’s office accused Gallant of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal.” Ahead of the talks, a Hamas official said the Islamist movement was “continuing its consultations” with mediators. Instead of more talks, Hamas demanded the implementation of a deal US President Joe Biden laid out on May 31.
A spokesman for Netanyahu told AFP that the heads of the Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet internal security service would attend the Doha talks.
Qatar was “working to ensure that there is Hamas representation as well,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
With AFP
