Negotiators are set to reconvene in Qatar to try to finalise a deal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and for the release of hostages, with signs that Israel and Hamas are on the brink of an agreement.
A Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations has told the BBC that, for the first time in the war, delegations from Israel and Hamas are conducting indirect talks in the same building.
Hamas is also said to have dropped its condition for Israeli troops to leave the Strip.
US President Joe Biden said a deal was “on the brink” of coming to fruition. An Israeli official also told news agency Reuters that a deal was possible in “hours, days or more”.
The new impetus comes after threats by US President-elect Donald Trump that “hell will break loose” if no deal is reached by the time he is inaugurated on 20 January.
Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, and with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar – who is mediating the negotiations – on Monday.
The Palestinian official told the BBC that Hamas and Israeli officials had six hours of indirect talks in the same building on Monday.
Revealing some potential details of the agreement, the official stated that “the detailed technical discussions took considerable time”.
Both sides agreed that Hamas would release three hostages on the first day of the agreement, after which Israel would begin withdrawing the troops from populated areas.
Seven days later, Hamas would release four additional hostages, and Israel would allow displaced people in the south to return to the north, but only on foot via the coastal road.
Cars, animal-drawn carts, and trucks would be permitted to cross through a passage adjacent to Salah al-Din Road, monitored by an X-ray machine operated by a Qatari-Egyptian technical security team.
The agreement includes provisions for Israeli forces to remain in the Philadelphi corridor and maintain an 800-meter buffer zone along the eastern and northern borders during the first phase, which will last 42 days.
Israel has also agreed to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including approximately 190 who have been serving sentences of 15 years or more. In exchange, Hamas will release 34 hostages.
Negotiations for the second and third phases of the agreement would begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire.
The father of an Israeli-American hostage told the BBC’s Newshour that he “wants to believe” that Israel has “gotten to ‘yes'” on a deal.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen said he “lives in terror” every day because of his fears for his son, Sagui.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was also present in Doha.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters that progress had been made and that the deal looked “much better than previously”.
But the latest developments come as Netanyahu faces fierce opposition to a potential deal from within his governing coalition.
Ten right-wing members, including some from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, have sent him a letter opposing a truce.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 46,500 people have been killed during the war.
Israel says 94 of the hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 34 are presumed dead, as well as another four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.
In Gaza, the situtation remains desperate.
Amande Bazarolle from Medecins Sans Frontieres told the BBC’s Today programme that even as the talks on a ceasefire continued, there had been heavy shelling across Gaza – in Rafa and Khan Yunis in the south and all the way to Gaza City in the north.
Ms Bazarolle said she did not expect an immediate improvement even with a ceasefire.
“The basic needs of everyday life that you’d expect are not here,” she said.
[BBC]