KEY POINTS
- No breakthrough in latest Gaza truce talks; negotiations to continue.
- Hamas seeks a 60-day ceasefire, prisoner swap, and Israel’s withdrawal guarantees.
- Netanyahu in Washington to meet Trump.
- 12 killed in Israeli strike on a Gaza clinic sheltering displaced people.
- Over 57,000 Gazans killed in Israeli military campaign since October 2023.
DOHA, Qatar: The latest round of indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in Doha ended on Monday without a breakthrough, a Palestinian official said, though talks aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire will continue.
“No breakthrough was achieved in the morning negotiation session, but the talks will continue, and Hamas hopes to reach an agreement”, the Hamas official told AFP of the discussions that aim to bring an end to 21 months of war in the Gaza Strip.
Another Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP the negotiations would resume later in the evening.
Israel and Hamas held indirect talks in Qatar ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington.
The latest round of negotiations began on Sunday to broker a ceasefire and reach an agreement on the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The Hamas and Israeli delegations were due to resume talks later on Monday, a Palestinian official said, cited by AFP.
The official said the delegations had exchanged views on Sunday via mediators, with representatives of the two sides seated in different rooms in the same building.
Netanyahu’s visit to US
Ahead of Netanyahu’s third visit since Trump’s return to office this year, the US president said there was a “good chance we have a deal with Hamas… during the coming week”.
“We’ve gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out,” he told journalists.
Netanyahu, speaking before heading to Washington, said his meeting with Trump could “definitely help advance this” deal.
Netanyahu said he had dispatched the team to the Qatari capital with “clear instructions” to reach an agreement “under the conditions that we have agreed to”.
He previously said Hamas’s response to a draft US-backed ceasefire proposal, conveyed through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, contained “unacceptable” demands.
Hamas’s conditions for Gaza truce
Two Palestinian sources close to the discussions had earlier told AFP the proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel.
However, they said, Hamas was also demanding certain conditions for Israel’s withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of bombardment during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system.
Trump is scheduled to meet the Israeli premier at 22:30 GMT Monday, the White House said, without the usual presence of journalists.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead, AFP reported.
Since October 2023, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment campaign in Gaza. International mediators have brokered two temporary halts in the fighting during which hostages were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
Recent efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire.
Attack on clinic in Gaza City
In Gaza, the civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 12 people on Monday, including six in a clinic housing people displaced by the ongoing Israeli bombardment campaign.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment, AFP reported.
In a statement on Monday, the military said it had struck “dozens of terrorists, weapons depots, observation posts, military buildings and other terror infrastructures” across Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip.
A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, when Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries.
But its operations have had a chaotic rollout, with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities while awaiting rations.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 57,523 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
