CAIRO — Israel and Hamas are making progress toward another ceasefire and hostage-release deal, officials said Tuesday, as negotiations went on and Israel threatened to expand its offensive to Gaza’s southern edge, where some 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
The talks continued in Egypt on Feb. 14, 2024, a day after Israeli forces rescued two captives in Rafah, the packed southern town along the Egyptian border, in a raid that killed at least 74 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and caused heavy destruction. The operation offered a glimpse of what a full-blown ground advance might look like.
A ceasefire deal, on the other hand, would give people in Gaza a desperately needed respite from the war, now in its fifth month, and offer freedom for at least some of the estimated 100 people still held captive in Gaza. Qatar, the United States and Egypt have sought to broker a deal in the face of starkly disparate positions expressed publicly by both Israel and Hamas.
Main goals
Israel has made destroying Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and freeing the hostages the main goals of its war, which was launched after thousands of Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 people captive. Tens of thousands of Israelis were displaced from destroyed communities.
The war has brought unprecedented destruction to the Gaza Strip, with more than 28,000 people killed, more than 70 percent of them women and minors, according to local health officials. Vast swaths of the territory have been flattened by Israel’s offensive, around 80 percent of the population has been displaced and a humanitarian catastrophe has pushed more than a quarter of the population toward starvation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on until “total victory,” and has insisted that military pressure will help free the hostages. But the rescued hostages, 60-year-old Fernando Marman and 70-year-old Louis Har, were just the second and third captives to be freed by the military since the war erupted.
Other Israeli officials have said only a deal can bring about the release of large numbers of hostages.
Over 100 were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong truce last year.
Three hostages were killed erroneously by Israeli forces in December and one female Israeli soldier was freed in a rescue mission in the early weeks of the war.
Israeli officials say around 30 hostages taken on Oct. 7 have died, either during the initial attack or in captivity.
Bridging the gaps
A senior Egyptian official said mediators have achieved “relatively significant” progress ahead of a meeting this week in Cairo of representatives from Qatar, the U.S. and Israel. The official said the meeting would focus on “crafting a final draft” of a six-week ceasefire deal, with guarantees that the parties would continue negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire.
CIA chief William Burns and David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, attended the Cairo talks. Both men played a key role in brokering the previous ceasefire.
A Western diplomat in the Egyptian capital also said a six-week deal was on the table but cautioned that more work is still needed to reach an agreement. The diplomat said the meeting Tuesday would be crucial in bridging the remaining gaps.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.