DOHA, Jan 15: Mediators were making a final push Wednesday to seal a Gaza truce and hostage release deal, after a Qatari official involved in the talks expressed hope an agreement could be reached “very soon”.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have intensified efforts to broker a ceasefire to enable the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
US President Joe Biden and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a phone call Tuesday that both sides needed to show “flexibility” to get a deal over the line, according to a statement from Sisi’s office.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went into a meeting with top security officials late Tuesday to discuss the deal, his office said, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the “ball is now in Hamas’s court”.
“If Hamas accepts, the deal is ready to be concluded and implemented,” he said.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Tuesday that negotiations were in their “final stages” and mediators were hopeful they would lead “very soon to an agreement”.
However, he cautioned that “until there is an announcement… we shouldn’t be over-excited”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said during a visit to Rome that there was a “true willingness from our side to reach an agreement”.
Hamas’s October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,645 people, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
Biden said Monday that an agreement was “on the brink” of being finalised, just ahead of the inauguration of his successor, Donald Trump. – TVS
