CAIRO (AP) — The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has made no progress, and it's unclear whether they would resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official said.
Phase one expires on Saturday, but under the deal's terms, fighting should not resume while negotiations are underway on phase two, which could end the war in Gaza, see Israeli troops withdraw and see the remaining living hostages returned home. According to Israel, 32 of the 59 hostages still in Gaza are dead.
The first phase, which paused 15 months of fighting in Gaza, saw the release of 33 hostages, including eight bodies, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people returned home to northern Gaza, aid into the territory increased and Israeli forces withdrew to buffer zones.
Officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been involved in negotiations on the second phase in Cairo. Hamas did not attend, but its position has been represented through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told The Associated Press there had been “no progress” before Israeli negotiators returned home on Friday.
It was unclear whether those mediators would return to Cairo to resume talks on Saturday as expected, and Naim said he had “no idea” when negotiations might resume.
Hamas started the war with its Oct. 7, 2023 attack that left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostage. Since then, Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but say more than half the dead have been women and children.
The two sides agreed to the three-phase ceasefire deal in January.
On Friday, Hamas said it “reaffirms its full commitment to implementing all terms of the agreement in all its stages and details” and called on the international community to pressure Israel to “immediately proceed to the second phase without any delay or evasion.”
Hamas has rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the ceasefire’s first phase by 42 days, doubling its length, saying it goes against the truce agreement, according to a member of the group who requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.
The Israeli proposal calls for extending the ceasefire through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started on Saturday, in return for an additional hostage exchange, the Hamas member said.
The agreement calls for Israel to begin withdrawing troops from a narrow strip of land in southern Gaza this weekend and complete the process within eight days. But an Israeli official said Thursday that Israeli forces would remain in the Philadelphi corridor indefinitely.
Other challenges complicate the ceasefire's future. Israel has said Hamas cannot be involved in governing Gaza after the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also ruled out any role in Gaza for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, dominated by Hamas’ main rival, Fatah. Hamas has said it is willing to hand over control of Gaza to other Palestinians but it has dismissed Israel’s suggestion that its leadership go into exile.
Netanyahu's office said last week that mediators were “also discussing ways to enhance the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, as part of efforts to alleviate the suffering of the population and support stability in the region.”
The U.N. food agency said on social media Saturday that it reached 1 million Palestinians across Gaza during the deal’s first phase.
“The ceasefire must hold,” the World Food Program said. “There can be no going back.”
___ Rising reported from Bangkok.
Samy Magdy And David Rising, The Associated Press
