Agencies
Doha/Gaza
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations are set to take place in Doha, involving officials from Israel, Qatar, the United States and Egypt, officials said.
It is not yet clear if the Palestinian group Hamas will join the renewed talks in the Qatari capital on Thursday. However, the US Department of State says Qatar has assured Washington that Hamas will be represented.
Hamas has voiced scepticism about the chances of the talks delivering real results, blaming Israel for stalling the talks, as nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in 10 months of war.
“Going to new negotiations allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the Reuters news agency.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the group wants mediators to go back to the original framework for a deal that was presented by US President Joe Biden in May.
“They say, until they have that guarantee, they will not be making a decision about sending a delegation to the talks,” she said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister has confirmed an Israeli team will attend Thursday’s talks in Doha, a statement said on Wednesday. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the departure of the Israeli delegation to Doha tomorrow, as well as the mandate for conducting the negotiations,” a statement from his office said.
Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Nitzan Alon and Ophir Falk will make up the Israeli delegation, Omer Dostri, spokesperson for Netanyahu, told the AFP news agency.
Alon coordinates issues related to the captives, and Falk is a political adviser to Netanyahu. The renewed talks follow appeals by the mediating nations, who have warned of a regional conflagration if the 10-month assault on Gaza continues.
Senior Iranian officials have said only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil last month.
Reporting from the White House in Washington, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said the US has maintained that some progress will be made at the talks, even as Biden has said reaching a breakthrough is “getting harder”. “Even though it doesn’t bode well, the United States saying there will be forward movement and that they are planning for that,” she said.
“So that’s been the messaging, the primary focus being trying to get some sort of ceasefire, hoping that that will prevent wider escalation in the region,” she said.
Meanwhile, at least 36 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Tuesday while another 20 were killed on Wednesday morning, Gaza’s health officials said.
Five people were killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank’s Tubas governorate on Wednesday during Israeli raids, including four who were killed by a drone strike on the town of Tammun.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 10 people have been wounded, with three suffering critical injuries, after an Israeli air raid targeted the town of al-Abbassieh in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district.
The country’s state-run National News Agency reported that the injured have been taken to multiple hospitals in the area.
Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Biden who has been repeatedly dispatched to the Middle East for Israel-Lebanon mediation, was back in Lebanon on Wednesday for another round of talks.
Speaking at his Beirut press conference, Hochstein stressed that a potential Gaza ceasefire deal could pave the way for a “diplomatic resolution” in Lebanon that prevents regional conflagration.
