NEXT STEPS
A day after Trump called to “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back”, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Netanyahu’s, was expected on Monday at the White House for talks on Iran and Gaza, an Israeli official said.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s security Cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said new opportunities had opened up for recovering the hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, has displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80 per cent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under displacement orders, according to the United Nations.
