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Hamas said it would not discuss a new deal to release Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza, unless Israel agrees to end hostilities.
Talks to broker a deal to release the remaining hostages seized by Hamas during its October 7 attack on Israel have resumed in recent days, with Israel’s spy chief David Barnea meeting Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and CIA boss Bill Burns on Monday in Warsaw.
The renewed diplomatic efforts sparked speculation about the possibility of a new agreement. But in a statement on Thursday, Hamas and other Palestinian factions said they had agreed not to discuss a deal to release the hostages “until after there is a comprehensive cessation of aggression”.
Hamas’s intervention came as Israeli forces stepped up their operations in Gazaexpanding their ground offensive in the centre of the besieged enclave, and militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv.
Israel has come under mounting international pressure to agree to an end to the fighting in Gaza, where the death toll from its offensive has passed 19,500, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel’s president Isaac Herzog said on Tuesday that his country was open to agreeing a new temporary truce with Hamas, and White House spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that the latest round of discussions was “very serious”.
“We hope that they lead somewhere,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
A person briefed on the talks said: “Serious talks between Israel and Hamas through mediators are ongoing in an attempt to break the deadlock, but progress remains slow and there is yet to be a significant breakthrough.”
However, others have played down the likelihood of a deal. A Hamas official told the FT earlier this week that despite Herzog’s statement, there would be no further talks until a permanent ceasefire was declared.
Hamas has previously said that it wants all of the more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons to be freed before it releases the roughly 120 hostages — some of whom may not be alive — it is still believed to hold.
Israeli officials have repeatedly insisted that they are only prepared to countenance a temporary truce as part of a hostage deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel would continue fighting until “Hamas is eliminated”.
“Whoever thinks that we will stop is detached from reality. We will not stop the fighting until all of the goals that we have set are achieved: the elimination of Hamas, the release of our hostages and the removal of the threat from Gaza,” he said.
The talks in Warsaw on Monday were the first three-way discussions between Israel, Qatar and the US, since the collapse of the previous hostage-for-prisoner swap earlier this month.
Under that deal, which was brokered by Qatar, 86 Israeli women and children were traded for 240 Palestinian prisoners under the cover of a fragile, week-long truce. Hamas also released another 24 foreigners, mostly Thai workers who were kidnapped from Israeli farms near the Gaza border.
Hamas and other militants seized about 240 hostages after storming into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7 and killing at least 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, in an assault that triggered the war.
Hamas has said it considers some of the remaining female hostages in its custody to be soldiers. However, Israel — where most people do military service, and remain in the reserves for years afterwards — regards those not on duty at the time of Hamas’s attack as civilians.