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CAIRO: The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has made “no progress,” and it’s unclear whether they will resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official said.
Phase one expires on Saturday, but under the deal’s terms, fighting should not resume while negotiations are underway on phase two, which could end the war in Gaza, see Israeli troops withdraw and see the remaining living hostages returned home. According to Israel, 32 of the 59 hostages still in Gaza are dead.
The first phase, which paused 15 months of fighting in Gaza, saw the release of 33 hostages, including eight bodies, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people returned home to northern Gaza, aid into the territory increased and Israeli forces withdrew to buffer zones.
Officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the US have been involved in negotiations on the second phase in Cairo. Hamas did not attend, but its position has been represented through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told The Associated Press there had been “no progress” before Israeli negotiators returned home on Friday.
It was unclear whether those mediators would return to Cairo to resume talks Saturday as expected. Naim said he had “no idea” when negotiations might resume.
Hamas started the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostage. Since then, Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but say more than half the dead have been women and children.
The two sides agreed to the three-phase ceasefire deal in January. Israelis rallied Saturday night to urge their government to continue the deal.
Hamas has reaffirmed its “full commitment to implementing all terms of the agreement in all its stages and details” and called on the international community to pressure Israel to immediately proceed to the second phase.
Other challenges complicate the ceasefire’s future. Israel has said Hamas cannot be involved in governing Gaza after the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also ruled out any role in Gaza for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, dominated by Hamas’ main rival, Fatah.
Hamas leader Mohamed Darwish on Saturday reiterated the group is willing to hand over power to a Palestinian national consensus government or an Egypt-proposed body of technocrats not aligned with Hamas or Fatah. His comments came in an open letter to next week’s summit of Arab leaders in Cairo. Hamas has dismissed Israel’s suggestion that its leadership go into exile.
Hamas also rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the ceasefire’s first phase by 42 days, doubling its length, saying it goes against the truce agreement, according to a member of the group who requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.
The Israeli proposal calls for extending the ceasefire through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started Saturday, in return for an additional hostage exchange, the Hamas member said.
Ramadan in Gaza
In Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, AP video showed a long table set for the breaking of the day’s Ramadan fast, snaking through the ruins and lit by strings of lights as the sky darkened.
War-weary Palestinians marked the first day of the holy month with fasting and more worries.
“Today there is a lot of goodness, but there is no money,” said Huda Matar about the skyrocketing prices, even though more food and other staples are available compared with last year.
Netanyahu’s office said last week that mediators were “also discussing ways to enhance the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, as part of efforts to alleviate the suffering of the population and support stability in the region.”
The UN food agency said on social media it reached 1 million Palestinians across Gaza during the deal’s first phase.
“The ceasefire must hold,” the World Food Program said. “There can be no going back.”
New video of hostages
Hamas published video footage Saturday showing a group of hostages, including two brothers embracing before one of them was released from Gaza.
The video, filmed under duress, was likely taken before Feb. 15, when Iair Horn was released and left his brother, Eitan, behind. The faces of what appear to be other hostages are blurred.
“I am very happy that my brother will be released tomorrow, but this is not logical in any way to separate families,” Eitan says. “Sign the second and third phase. enough of war.”