New Round of Gaza Ceasefire Negotiations Begins Without Hamas | Israel-Gaza War

A new round of negotiations has begun aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and preventing the fighting from escalating into a regional conflict, while the death toll in the Palestinian territories has reached a record 40,000 people, according to local health authorities.

Mediators from the United States, Qatar and Egypt met with an Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Thursday afternoon, with talks expected to continue into the following day. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is not directly involved in the talks, meaning there is little prospect of progress.

While Hamas and Israel agreed in principle last month to implement a three-stage plan that Joe Biden publicly proposed in May, both sides have since asked for “amendments” and “clarifications,” leaving the talks at an impasse. The gaps include the continued presence of Israeli forces on the Gaza-Egypt border, the sequencing of hostage releases, and the return of civilians from southern Gaza to northern Gaza.

The renewed efforts to hold talks have become more vital than ever after the assassination of a senior Hezbollah leader and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, on July 31. The killings in Beirut and Tehran, which the Lebanese group and Iran have blamed on Israel, threaten to turn the Gaza war into a region-wide conflict.

A ceasefire in Gaza is hoped to cool the temperature in the Middle East and dissuade Iran and Hezbollah from taking retaliatory action. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the talks were off to a “promising start,” but that an immediate agreement was unlikely given the significant gaps that remain between the two sides.

The United States believes Tehran remains intent on responding to Haniyeh’s killing with an attack on Israel, he added. Over the past two weeks, the United States has deployed warships, submarines and warplanes to the region to defend Israel from potential attacks by Iran and its network of allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, all of which have already been involved in the Gaza war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of sabotaging the talks for political gain, but he reportedly expanded the negotiating team’s mandate before heading to Doha on Thursday morning.

In a statement on the eve of the talks, Hamas reiterated its demands, including that the negotiations focus on implementing Biden’s plan rather than allowing Israel to “procrastinate to buy time.”

“We are at a crucial moment for global stability. The coming hours and days may determine the future of the Middle East,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who is said to be planning an imminent visit to Israel, said in a statement. “A ceasefire will not only protect civilians in Gaza, but will also pave the way for wider de-escalation and bring much-needed stability.”

“It is in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians that an agreement be reached quickly. I urge all parties to engage in the negotiations in good faith and to show the flexibility necessary to reach an agreement.”

As the talks got underway in Doha, the Israeli military continued its latest ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where local residents reported artillery and air strikes, as well as shelling in Rafah. The health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said Israeli airstrikes had killed 40 people in the territory in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 4,005 in 10 months of fighting.

Local authorities do not differentiate between civilian and militant victims, but it is believed that 70% of them are women and children.

This figure represents nearly 2% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, making the Gaza war one of the bloodiest of the 21st century so far and the bloodiest in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is believed that about 10,000 more people remain under the rubble, and that those who died from disease, hunger and other hardships caused by the war are not counted in the official toll.

Israel disputes the death toll in Gaza, but the United Nations has found that in the multiple wars the blockaded territory has seen over the 17 years since Hamas took control of the territory, the local health authorities’ figures are accurate.

“Forty thousand lives have been lost in Gaza – a devastating reminder that behind every number is a story, a family, a stolen future,” said Tarneem Hammad, Advocacy Officer for British Medical Aid for Palestinians in Central Gaza. “The scale of this incident should not numb us, but rather ignite our determination to seek justice and peace, and demand a ceasefire. We must not lose more lives.”

“Oh God, we hope they reach an agreement and the war ends, because the population has been completely annihilated. People have no breath left. People are tired,” Abu Nidal Awini, a resident of the central city of Deir al-Balah, told The Associated Press.

Also on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech before the Turkish parliament in Ankara, pledged to visit the Gaza Strip.

Abbas’s secular Fatah movement was exiled from Gaza after a brief civil war with Hamas in 2007, after which the Islamist group took control of the coastal territory. Elected to a five-year term in 2005, the deeply unpopular leader has refused to hold elections since.

It was not immediately clear how Abbas, 88, would implement his pledge given that Israel controls all of Gaza’s border crossings.

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its October 7 attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and captured 250. On Thursday, relatives and friends of an estimated 115 Israelis still held captive in Gaza protested in favor of a deal outside Netanyahu’s Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv.