By Zain Khalil
JERUSALEM (AA) – The Israeli negotiation team will not go to Cairo to resume indirect negotiations regarding a prisoner exchange deal until it receives a list of names of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported on Saturday.
A senior Israeli official told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that no Israeli delegation is scheduled to attend talks in Cairo on Sunday.
“The official said that until Hamas provides the names of the hostages who are still alive, Israel will remain absent from negotiations,” reported the daily.
The Israeli website Walla quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Tel Aviv “informed Egypt and Qatar yesterday (Friday) that it will not hold another round of talks on the exchange deal until Hamas provides a list of detainees who are still alive and seriously responds regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners proposed for release as part of the deal.”
The website also quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that “after three days of talks in Qatar, the Israeli delegation returned to Tel Aviv on Thursday without any answers.”
A high-level Egyptian source revealed that negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip will resume in Cairo on Sunday, according to Al Qahera News Channel on Saturday.
The source affirmed that “there are intensive Egyptian efforts to reach an agreement for a cease-fire before Ramadan (which begins on March 11).”
Meetings in Doha and Cairo were followed by a meeting in Paris on Feb. 23, involving Israel, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to discuss a prisoner exchange deal. This was the second such meeting hosted by the French capital, following a meeting held last January.
A cease-fire between Hamas and Israel prevailed for a week from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1, 2023, during which there was a cessation of hostilities, prisoner exchanges, and extremely limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
However, meetings hosted by Cairo in February failed to finalize the deal, with Hamas insisting on its stance that the war on the Gaza Strip must end, a demand not accepted by Israel, as reported by the Israeli official broadcasting authority.
On Friday, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced the killing of 7 Israeli hostages in an Israeli attack on the Al-Qassam group after weeks of being out of contact, bringing the total number of hostages killed in the Gaza Strip to 70.
Before the announcement of the deaths of the seven Israeli hostages, Tel Aviv estimated that there are 134 Israeli hostages in Gaza, while it holds in its prisons at least 8,800 Palestinians, according to official sources from both sides.
Israel ignored the International Court of Justice's provisional ruling and continued its attack on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 30,320 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 71,533 since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.
The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.
*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala