Bethan McKernan
The Guardian / January 6, 2025
US secretary of state says he is confident agreement can be reached in renewed push before Donald Trump takes office.
Jerusalem – Israel and Hamas appear to be edging closer towards a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could bring the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip to an end amid reports of optimism among decision makers.
The latest round of negotiations intended to broker a lasting truce in the 15-month-old conflict resumed in Qatar on Sunday. Hamas said on Monday that it had given mediators a list of 34 Israeli captives seized during the group’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, who could be freed as part of the “first phase of a prisoner exchange deal”.
The list included the remaining women, children and older and injured people, Hamas said, although Israel said the militant group had yet to convey whether those named were alive or dead. A Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that the group needed at least a week of calm in Gaza to determine the hostages’ locations and communicate with captors about their status.
Despite the latest talks, Israel has stepped up airstrikes on the Palestinian territory that killed at least 100 people over the weekend, local health officials said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the toll.
The same list of 34 hostages was first put forward in July 2024, according to the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli and western intelligence services estimate that at least one-third of the remaining 95 or so Israeli captives in Gaza have been killed.
Several rounds of talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have failed to produce a lasting ceasefire. Officials have repeatedly voiced optimism that a breakthrough was close only for the negotiations to founder.
A renewed push is under way, however, before Donald Trump takes office as US president on 20 January. Trump, whose first term was notable for strong support for Israel and an otherwise mercurial foreign policy, has warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if the group does not free Israeli hostages.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Monday that negotiations with Hamas “are approaching a crossroads, and the Israeli delegation is optimistic that a deal can be finalised within the next few days”.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Monday during a visit to South Korea: “If we don’t get [a deal] across the finish line in the next two weeks, I’m confident that it will get its completion at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
Conditions in Gaza, where almost all of the population on 2.3 million are living in makeshift accommodation, are deteriorating in the face of cold and wet winter weather, which has caused flooding. Another infant was reported to have died of hypothermia on Monday, bringing the number of babies killed in recent weeks by the harsh conditions to seven.
Israeli ground operations have concentrated on the northern third of Gaza over the past three months, but on Monday two children were killed in a drone strike in Al-Shawka in the southern town of Rafah, the civil defence service said.
The World Food Programme also said on Monday that Israeli forces had opened fire on its clearly marked convoy near Wadi Gaza the day before, despite it receiving prior security clearances from the Israeli authorities.
There were no reported casualties. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
Three Israelis were killed and seven injured in a drive-by shooting targeting a bus in the occupied West Bank on Monday, and the IDF killed two Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, near Jenin and Nablus.
Violence in the West Bank has surged in tandem with the war in Gaza, where the health ministry said on Monday that the death toll has reached 45,800. The UN and aid agencies consider the ministry’s data to be accurate.
About 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack that triggered the war in October 2023. Eighty captives were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails in a ceasefire in November that year, but the truce collapsed after a week.
Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for The Guardian
