The Albany Gazette - Israel to pursue new talks on Gaza hostage deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea had met US and Qatari officials in Doha and agreed they should talk to Hamas about a deal to free Israelis seized in last year's October 7 attack.

The statement came two days after Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proposed a two-day truce and limited hostage-prisoner exchange that, he said, could lead to a permanent ceasefire.

"During the meeting, the parties discussed a new unified framework that combines previous proposals and also takes into account key issues and recent developments in the region," Netanyahu's office said.

"In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to assess the feasibility of talks and to further efforts to promote a deal."

- 'It should end. It should end' -

US President Joe Biden, asked about the possibility of a ceasefire just over a year after Hamas's cross-border attack triggered the Gaza war which has spread to Lebanon and threatened to draw in Iran, said he would talk to Israel immediately to push for a ceasefire.

"My staff is talking to them right now," Biden said, after casting an early ballot in the race for his successor. "We need a ceasefire. We should end this war. It should end, it should end, it should end."

The United States is Israel's top military supplier and a mediator in the Doha talks. Biden has stood by the country's right to defend itself despite international outrage at the mounting death toll in both Gaza and Lebanon, where for the past month it has engaged in a ground and air war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

After the October 7 attack, the bloodiest in Israel's history, the military launched a massive offensive into Gaza to root out Hamas. Israel has killed the Islamist group's top leadership but the war has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and driven almost all from their homes.

- Hostage family pressure -

During their attack, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, both soldiers and civilians. Previous truces have allowed some to be released in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel, but 97 are still in Gaza. The Israeli ministry says 34 of these are dead.

After Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this month, seen by observers as an obstacle to a hostage deal, pressure has mounted on Netanyahu's government from both hostage families and the international community to agree a ceasefire to allow the rest of the captured to come home.

Critics in Israel have also accused Netanyahu of obstructing mediation for a truce and hostage-release deal.

Under the plan announced by Sisi, "four hostages would be exchanged for some prisoners in Israeli jails", followed by more negotiations within 10 days aiming to secure "a complete ceasefire and the entry of aid" into the Gaza Strip.

Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, also speaking on Sunday, said that, "Not all objectives can be achieved through military operations alone... To realise our moral duty to bring our hostages home, we will have to make painful concessions."

But renewed talk of a possible ceasefire came as violence continued to rage, and Israel launched a deadly bombardment against the Lebanese city of Tyre, collapsing an entire apartment block even before issuing a warning to civilians to evacuate the area.

An AFP journalist in the city saw that an Israeli strike had already pancaked an entire block and, according to the health ministry, the bombing killed at least seven people and wounded 17.

Hezbollah said it ambushed and clashed with Israeli troops near Lebanon's southern border and fired rockets at a Haifa-area naval base inside Israel.

Israel did not immediately confirm the targets, but said 115 projectiles had been fired over the frontier.

Hours after an initial strike that demolished the residential block the Israeli army issued a warning to Tyre residents, telling them to leave ahead of another attack on Hezbollah targets there.

Last month, Israel escalated strikes on Hezbollah bastions across Lebanon and launched ground operations, following a year of low-intensity exchanges and cross-border attacks that the Lebanese group says were in support of Hamas.

At least 1,634 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

- 'Unbearable' -

In Gaza, rescuers reported fresh strikes on Monday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said three people were killed in a drone attack on Gaza City, while the civil defence agency and an AFP correspondent reported more air strikes and shelling in other areas of the territory's north and centre.

Since October 6 the military has been carrying out an air and ground assault in north Gaza to destroy operational capabilities it says Hamas is trying to rebuild there.

On Monday the military said it had Jabalia, in the north, and "eliminated dozens of terrorists in ground and aerial activity".

An Israeli military official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the goal is to clear the Jabalia refugee camp of militants, which "will take us at least (several) weeks" to achieve.

The official said Israel was not forcing residents to leave, claiming that "the safer zone in the Gaza Strip is in the south, but it's up to them" to decide whether to go.

The process has left 100,000 people trapped in a "siege", Gaza civil defence agency's spokesman, Mahmud Bassal said late Sunday

"For 22 days, not a drop of water or bread has entered the northern Gaza Strip," Bassal said in a statement.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said, "The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in North Gaza is unbearable."

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(M.Scott--TAG)