Israel to send delegation to Qatar for Gaza ceasefire negotiations

JERUSALEM

Israel will send its negotiating team led by Mossad chief David Barnea to Qatar on Sunday to discuss the possibility of resuming negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza and a prisoner and hostage exchange deal with Hamas, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office announced Thursday.

The delegation, led by Barnea, will meet CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.

“Following the meetings that took place in Cairo, the Prime Minister ordered the director of Mossad to leave for Doha and advance a series of initiatives that are on the agenda, with the support of members of the cabinet of security,” Netanyahu said. said the office.

In this context, the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza issued a statement urging Netanyahu to “grant the negotiating delegation full authority to reach an agreement that would bring back their sons.”

Eariler, the Qatari prime minister, in a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Doha, said his country would host a new round of negotiations aimed at ending the war in the Palestinian enclave . Blinken this week began his 11th tour of the Middle East since last October.

Mediation efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have so far failed to produce a ceasefire in Gaza, but Washington maintains that Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week could lead to a breakthrough in the talks.

Hamas insists, however, that only a complete Israeli withdrawal and a total cessation of hostilities will end the conflict which has killed more than 42,800 people since last October.

Israel’s military presence along the Philadelphia Corridor, a demilitarized zone along Egypt’s border with Gaza, is also a sticking point in the negotiations.

*Written by Rania Abu Shamala in Istanbul

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