Hamas sending delegation to Cairo for talks on Gaza cease-fire
By Ramadan Al-Fatash, Cindy Riechau and Maher Abukhater dpa German Press Agency
CAIRO – A delegation from the Palestinian militant group Hamas plans to travel to Cairo on Sunday for negotiations over a possible cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and the release of further hostages being held there.
Broadcaster Al-Jazeera, citing Hamas sources, reported that mediators have recently been in close touch with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh to urge a continuation of negotiations.
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya will lead the delegation to Cairo, the group announced on Saturday. The statement said that Hamas would not deviate from its demands, including for a permanent cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes.
The Israeli government, which has vowed to destroy Hamas in its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, has so far rejected those demands.
Talks have been stalled for weeks. Mediators have hoped for another deal for a cease-fire as well as the exchange of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
A push to strike a deal before the start of the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, Ramadan, were unsuccessful.
More than 32,500 Palestinians are said to have been killed in Israeli attacks so far and thousands more were injured.
On Saturday, the Israeli military announced that the body of a hostage had been recovered in an overnight operation in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said the man had been abducted from Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel, where scores of people were killed and taken hostage in the massacre by Palestinian Islamist militants on Oct. 7.
He was killed while held in the captivity of Islamic Jihad terrorists, the IDF said. It did not say where the military raid took place or how the victim was killed.
His mother was also abducted but released in late November, while his father was murdered in the kibbutz, the military said.
Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip, launched the surprise attack on Israel six months ago. It was aided by fighters from other organizations, including Islamic Jihad.
The groups took more than 200 people captive on Oct. 7. About 100 – most of them women and children – were released while a temporary cease-fire was in place in November. The IDF has said that it believes more than 30 of the hostages remaining in Gaza are no longer alive.
“Our mission since the beginning of the war has been, and remains, to locate and bring the hostages home. We will continue to operate until it is complete,” the IDF statement said.
The head of the United Nations Office of Civilian Aid, Martin Griffiths, has urgently called for an end to the war in Gaza.
“Each day, this war claims more civilian victims. Every second that it continues sows the seeds of a future so deeply obscured by this relentless conflict,” Griffiths said in New York on Saturday.
“As I and many others have said repeatedly, the end of this war is so long overdue.”
For Palestinians in Gaza, the past six months “have brought death, devastation and now the immediate prospect of a shameful man-made famine,” the OCHA head said.
“For the people affected by the lasting horror of the Oct. 7 attacks, it has been six months of grief and torment,” he added.
“Rarely has there been such global outrage at the toll of conflict, with seemingly so little done to end it and instead so much impunity,” the Briton, who holds the most important post for humanitarian aid in the U.N., said.