Israel-Hamas: Int’l mediators hold new cease-fire talks over Gaza

In an attempt to end the Israel-Hamas war and secure the release of several hostages, international mediators convened in Qatar on Thursday.

A possible agreement is viewed as the best chance of averting a more protracted regional dispute.

The talks come as Gaza’s Hamas-run ministry of health said that more than 40,000 Palestinians had been killed since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.

CIA Director William Burns traveled to Doha as the US, Qatar, and Egypt prepared to meet with an Israeli delegation.

Hamas leaders stated that the group will not send a team to the negotiations, accusing Israel of adding new demands to a prior proposal that received US and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle.

The group stated that it would still be willing to communicate with mediators after the negotiations, depending on how they went. Local Israeli media claimed early Thursday that Hamas would send a delegate to the talks.

A cease-fire in Gaza would undoubtedly reduce regional tensions. Diplomats believe it will persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to delay retaliation for the deaths of a prominent Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and Hamas’ top political leader in an explosion in Tehran.

The mediators have spent months attempting to work out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release scores of hostages kidnapped in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war in exchange for a long-term cease-fire.

Hamas has rejected Israel’s latest demands, which include a long-term military deployment along the border with Egypt and a line bisecting Gaza where it would examine Palestinians going home to weed out extremists.