An Israeli tank on patrol in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Photo / AP
Israel and Hamas are making progress towards another ceasefire and hostage release deal, officials said on Tuesday, as negotiations went on and Israel threatened to expand its offensive to Gaza’s southern edge, where about 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
The talks continued in Egypt 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.
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 October 7, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 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 per cent of them women and children, according to local health officials. Vast swaths of the territory have been flattened by Israel’s offensive, about 80 per cent of the population has been displaced, and a humanitarian catastrophe has pushed more than a quarter of the population towards starvation.
In other developments, South Africa, which has lodged genocide allegations against Israel at the International Court of Justice, said on Tuesday it had filed an “urgent request” with the court to consider whether Israel’s military operations in Rafah constituted a breach of provisional orders handed down by the justices last month. Those orders called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians.
Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations and says it is carrying out operations in accordance with international law. It blames Hamas for the high death toll because the militants operate in dense residential areas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on until “total victory”, and has insisted military pressure will help free the hostages. But the rescued hostages, 60-year-old Fernando Marman and 70-year-old Louis Har, were only 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 week-long 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 about 30 hostages taken on October 7 have died, either during the initial attack or in captivity.
A senior Egyptian official said mediators had achieved “relatively significant” progress before a meeting on Tuesday in Cairo of representatives from Qatar, the US and Israel. The official said the meeting would focus on “crafting a final draft” of a six-week ceasefire deal, with guarantees the parties would continue negotiations towards 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 more work was needed to reach an agreement. The diplomat said the meeting on Tuesday would be crucial in bridging the remaining gaps.
While the officials did not disclose the precise details of the emerging deal, the sides have been discussing varying proposals for weeks.
Israel has proposed a two-month ceasefire in which hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and top Hamas leaders in Gaza would be allowed to relocate to other countries.
Hamas rejected those terms. It laid out a three-phase plan of 45 days each in which the hostages would be released in stages, Israel would free hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians, including senior militants, and the war would wind down, with Israel withdrawing its troops. That was viewed as a non-starter for Israel, which wants to topple Hamas before ending the war.
But President Joe Biden signalled on Monday that a deal might be within reach.
“The key elements of the deal are on the table,” Biden said alongside visiting Jordanian King Abdullah II, adding, “there are gaps that remain”. He said the US would do “everything possible” to make an agreement happen.
The signs of progress came despite continued fighting.
Palestinians were still counting the dead after Israel’s hostage rescue mission as the death toll climbed Tuesday to 74. Residents and displaced Palestinians in Gaza were searching through the rubble from Israeli airstrikes that provided cover for the rescue mission.
Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab broadcaster funded by Qatar, said an Israeli airstrike in Rafah wounded two of its journalists, with one having to undergo an amputation. It identified the wounded as cameraman Ahmad Matar and reporter Ismail Abu Omar. It was unclear when the strike took place, and the Israeli military had no immediate comment.
While concerns have grown over Rafah because it is sheltering many Palestinians, fighting continued throughout the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said troops were battling militants in Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and in central Gaza. It said on Tuesday that three soldiers were killed in combat, raising the death toll among troops since the Gaza ground operation began in late October to 232.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the bodies of 133 people killed in Israeli strikes were brought to hospitals over the past day. The fatalities brought the death toll in Gaza to 28,473 since the war began on October 7, according to the ministry, which says more than 68,000 people have been wounded.