Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has said any Gaza ceasefire deal must involve the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the embattled territory.
“Any agreement must achieve a comprehensive ceasefire, a complete (Israeli) withdrawal from Gaza, (and) the return of the displaced,” Hamas official Hossam Badran said in a statement after truce talks resumed in Doha today.
Mr Badran said that the Palestinian group sees that any negotiations must be based on a clear plan to implement what was agreed on previously, as talks between mediators are set continue in Doha.
Mr Badran reiterated in a statement published by Hamas that any deal should achieve a complete ceasefire, complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a return of hostages, a return of displaced Palestinians and a hostage exchange deal.
Ceasefire talks off to ‘promising start’ – White House
The White House said that Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar involving top US officials had a “promising start” but that it did not expect to close a deal immediately.
Talks resumed in Doha as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said has killed over 40,000.
The conflict sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October attack on Israel has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a towering humanitarian crisis.
“Today is a promising start,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, who confirmed that the talks opened in Doha involving CIA Director William Burns.
“There remains a lot of work to do. Given the complexity of the agreement, we do not anticipate coming out of these talks today with a deal,” he said.
Mr Kirby said he expected the talks to continue tomorrow.
He said: “This is vital work. Remaining obstacles can be overcome, and we must bring this process to a close.
“We need to see the hostages released, relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, security for Israel and lower tensions in the region, and we need to see those things as soon as possible.”
Earlier, a source with knowledge of the talks confirmed to AFP they had begun in the Qatari capital.
They did not disclose whether Hamas had sent any delegates to the meeting, which Israel and CIA director William Burns planned to attend.
Ahead of the negotiations, Mr Kirby told CNN the focus would be on implementing details of a proposal that President Joe Biden laid out on 31 May.
“That’s when it gets the hardest and the most gritty,” Mr Kirby said, adding “hopefully we’ll make some progress here in the coming hours and days.”
So far, there has been only one, week-long truce in November, when Gaza militants released 105 hostages seized in the 7 October attack in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
A Hamas official said the Islamist movement would demand the implementation of the plan that Mr Biden said would start with an initial six-week “complete ceasefire”, the release of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid as the warring sides negotiate “a permanent end to hostilities”.
The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 – which UN human rights chief Volker Turk called a “grim milestone”.
“Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war,” he added.
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The Gaza ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties, said the tally included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
In Beirut yesterday, visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said a deal in Gaza “would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war”.
He added: “We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”
Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since a week-long truce in November when militants released dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
One of the Palestinians freed at that time was among two people killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank earlier today, Palestinian sources said.
Israel’s military said a strike killed two armed militants.
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 Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling… in part because of Israel”.
Mr Netanyahu’s office accused Mr Gallant of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.
US news website Axios, citing US officials, said former president Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election, spoke with Mr Netanyahu yesterday and discussed the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
The latest mediation push follows the 31 July killing of Hamas political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran. His killing sent fears of a wider conflagration soaring.
Iran and its regional allies blamed Israel and vowed retaliation. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Read more: 10 months of bloodshed: The Gaza war in numbers
Western leaders have urged Tehran to avoid hitting Israel over Haniyeh’s killing, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s military commander.
A spokesman for Mr 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.
Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
More than 370 Hezbollah members have been killed in ten months of near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces, according to an AFP tally, more than the Iran-backed movement lost in the 2006 war with Israel.
On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to military figures.
In Gaza, where the war has destroyed much of the territory’s housing and other infrastructure, relatively few incidents were reported.
In the most deadly bombing, rescuers said air strikes killed five people in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said troops had killed about 20 militants in Rafah, southern Gaza.
Yesterday, dead and wounded including bloodied children arrived at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis after an Israeli strike.
“I was not pro-Hamas but now I support them and I want to fight,” one grieving man shouted.
Hamas says guard who killed Israeli hostage acted ‘in revenge’
In a separate announcement, a spokesperson for Hamas’ armed al-Qassam Brigades said a Hamas guard who killed an Israeli hostage on Monday acted “in revenge” against instructions after he got news that his two children had been killed in an Israeli strike.
The incident doesn’t represent the group’s ethics, the spokesperson added.
In a later message on the group’s official Telegram, it posted: “Your Brutality is an Imminent Danger to Your Prisoners.”
On Monday, after Hamas’ initial announcement of the incident, the Israeli military said it could not immediately corroborate or refute the group’s report.
