Recently resumed cease-fire negotiations in Gaza are expected to continue Friday, U.S. and regional officials said, as part of efforts to defuse rising tensions in the Middle East.
White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that negotiations were underway in Doha with the participation of officials from Israel, the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
“We do not anticipate concluding a deal today as a result of these negotiations,” Kirby said. “In fact, I expect that discussions will continue tomorrow. This is critical work. The remaining hurdles can be overcome and we need to bring this process to a close.”
Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera TV also cited a senior Egyptian source as saying that negotiations would resume on Friday. Reuters news agency reported a similar report, citing an unidentified official briefed on the situation.
A journalist from the American media outlet Axios reported that the negotiations would continue for another day and that the Israeli delegation would remain in Doha on Thursday evening.
The talks began Thursday as health officials in Gaza confirmed that the Israeli military has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the enclave since the start of the war, underscoring the horrific toll of the conflict.
Proposal in several phases
Although few public details are known about the content of the negotiations, they are aimed at finalizing a ceasefire agreement presented by US President Joe Biden in late May.
The U.S.-backed deal calls for a multi-phased effort to end the war, beginning with a six-week pause in fighting that would allow the release of some Israeli captives held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The second phase of the agreement provides for a definitive end to the fighting and the release of all Israeli prisoners still in captivity. The last part of the agreement provides for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, devastated by the Israeli offensive.
On Wednesday, Hamas and some of its allied factions issued a joint statement stressing that all negotiations should focus on implementing the proposals already agreed upon.
Palestinian groups have said a deal must include “a comprehensive end to (Israeli) aggression, complete withdrawal of occupation, lifting of the siege and opening of the crossing, reconstruction and carrying out a serious prisoner exchange.”
The statement raises questions about Hamas’ participation in the negotiations.
In a statement released Thursday, Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, reiterated the group’s position.
Badran said Hamas viewed the Doha negotiations from a “strategic perspective” aimed at ending the war on Gaza. He did not confirm the group’s participation in the talks.
“The obstacle to reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is the continued Israeli escape,” Badran added.
The Palestinian group does not usually hold face-to-face negotiations with Israeli officials, but has previously participated in talks indirectly through mediators.
U.S. officials said the ongoing talks in Doha will follow the format of previous negotiations, in which Qatari and Egyptian mediators would convey messages to Hamas officials in Qatar, who in turn would communicate with the group’s leader in Gaza, namely Yahya Sinwar.
“In the past, it worked very similarly to the way it works today in Doha, where mediators would sit down and talk, work out the issues, and then those mediators would contact Hamas, and then the Hamas leadership in Doha would communicate directly with Mr. Sinwar to get final answers,” Kirby said.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said Thursday that the group was able to communicate “without problems” with its new leader, Sinwar, despite security measures taken to protect the Gaza-based leader.
According to Mohammed Jamjoom, an Tel Aviv Tribune journalist in Doha, the extent of Hamas’s participation in the negotiations is unclear.
“There are very few concrete details emerging from the discussions that are taking place behind closed doors here in Doha,” he said.
“But while these negotiations are very important at a time when expectations are low, there seems to be cautious optimism at the moment. More and more people close to the negotiations are suggesting that these talks will last at least into a second day, if not longer.”
Regional tensions
The United States, which has approved more than $14 billion in military aid to Israel to help fund the war in Gaza, had previously blamed Hamas alone for the failure to reach a deal.
But recent reports in Israeli and American media suggest that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is derailing the negotiations by adding new demands.
On Thursday, Kirby declined to assign responsibility for the failure to reach a cease-fire so far.
“The negotiations take place in the following way: you start with a text on a piece of paper, and both sides work on this text. Usually, both sides make amendments to this text,” he explained.
“You start over, you have more discussions about amendments, and that leads to more discussions, and so on.”
His remarks, however, mark a radical departure from the tone Washington adopted in June, when it insisted that Hamas was the “only” obstacle to a ceasefire deal.
Washington vetoed three UN Security Council measures that would have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt called for the round of negotiations in a joint statement last week, urging Israel and Hamas “to close all remaining gaps and begin implementing the agreement without further delay.”
The talks come amid growing fears of a regional escalation, with Iran vowing to attack Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah also vowed to retaliate for the death of one of its top commanders in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, hours before Haniyeh’s assassination.
It is not certain that Iran and Hezbollah would withdraw if a ceasefire materialized in Gaza.
Kirby suggested that Iran’s delayed response does not mean an attack on Israel will not happen.
“We know that Iran has made some preparations. We believe that if they decide to attack, they could do it with little or no notice and it could happen soon,” he told reporters.
“But we obviously want to avoid such an outcome, which is why we continue to engage in quite intensive diplomacy to try to prevent this situation from escalating.”
