Israel to send delegation to Qatar to try to ‘advance’ ceasefire negotiations

Israel has said it will send a delegation to Qatar on Monday “in an effort to advance the negotiations” around the ceasefire in Gaza.

It came after Hamas reported “positive signals” in talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on starting negotiations on the truce’s delayed second phase.

The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office gave no details except to say it had “accepted the invitation of US-backed mediators”.

There was no immediate comment from the White House, which on Wednesday made the surprise confirmation of direct US talks with Hamas.

Over the past week, Israel has pressed Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for an extension of the first phase, which ended last weekend, and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 34 others.

Israel last weekend cut off all supplies to Gaza and its more than two million people as it pressed Hamas to agree. The militant group has said the move would affect the remaining hostages as well.

The ceasefire has paused the deadliest and most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023.

The first phase allowed the return of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Before their weekly rally in Tel Aviv, relatives of hostages appealed to US President Donald Trump, who met eight former hostages on Wednesday.

“Mr President, a return to war means a death sentence for the living hostages left behind. Please sir, do not allow Netanyahu to sacrifice them,” they said.

Also on Saturday, foreign ministers from Muslim nations rejected Mr Trump’s calls to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population and backed a plan for an administrative committee to govern the territory to allow reconstruction to proceed.

The foreign ministers gathered in Saudi Arabia for a special session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to address the situation in Gaza. The OIC has 57 nations with largely Muslim populations.

They supported a plan to rebuild Gaza put forward by Egypt and backed by Arab states including Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Without mentioning Mr Trump, the ministers’ statement said they rejected “plans aimed at displacing the Palestinian people individually or collectively… as ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law and a crime against humanity”.

Mr Trump has called for Gaza’s population to be resettled elsewhere permanently so the US can take over the territory and develop it for others. Palestinians have rejected calls to leave.

The ministers at the OIC gathering supported a proposal that an administrative committee replace Hamas in governing Gaza. The committee would work “under the umbrella” of the Palestinian Authority, based in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has rejected the authority having any role in Gaza, but has not put forward an alternative for postwar rule.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the UK said in a joint statement that they welcome the Arab initiative for a Gaza reconstruction plan, calling it “a realistic path”. They added that “Hamas must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel any more”, and they support the central role for the Palestinian Authority.

Early on Saturday, an Israeli strike killed two Palestinians in the southern-most Gaza city of Rafah, the Health Ministry there said. The Israeli military said it struck several men who appeared to be flying a drone that entered Israel.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.

Hamas’s attack in October 2023 killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, inside Israel and took 251 people hostage. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other arrangements.