GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — Hamas said it would release a US-Israeli hostage held in Gaza as the group revealed it was engaged in direct talks with the United States towards a ceasefire in the war-battered territory.
“Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a dual US national, will be released as part of efforts towards a ceasefire” and the reopening of aid crossings, the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.
The family of 21-year-old Alexander said they had been informed that he might be released “in the coming days”.
In a joint statement Egypt and Qatar, who along with the US have mediated talks between Hamas and Israel, welcomed the development as a “a gesture of goodwill and an encouraging step toward a return to the negotiating table”.
Earlier, two Hamas officials told AFP that talks were ongoing in the Qatari capital of Doha with the United States and reported “progress” had been made.
Israeli strikes meanwhile continued, with Gaza’s civil defence agency reporting that at least 12 people were killed on Sunday including four young children.
One Hamas official, speaking of the talks with the United States, said there was “progress made… notably on the entry of aid to the Gaza Strip” and the potential exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
A second official also reported progress “on the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”.
Israel again vowed to keep fighting despite the talks.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any future “negotiations will take place under fire with a commitment to achieving all the objectives of the war”.
Gaza militants hold 58 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Post-war administration
Israel ended the last ceasefire, which lasted two months, on March 18, launching a major offensive in Gaza and ramping up its bombardment of the territory.
It has also cut off all aid to Gaza, saying it would pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages.
Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have taken place from the early months of the war without bringing it to an end.
Washington had for decades refused publicly to engage directly with Hamas, which it labels a terrorist organisation, before first doing so in March.
Hamas has continued to insist on a deal that ends the war and on April 18 rejected an Israeli proposal for a 45-day truce and hostage-prisoner exchange.
In its statement on Sunday, the group said it was willing to “immediately begin intensive negotiations” that could lead to an agreement to end the war and would see Gaza under a technocratic and independent administration.
“This will ensure calm and stability for many years, along with reconstruction and the end of the blockade”.
Earlier this month, the Israeli government approved plans to expand its offensive in the Gaza Strip, with officials talking of retaining a long-term presence there.
Aid plan
Despite the talks, the war in the devastated Palestinian territory raged on.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, told AFP that Israeli jets had hit three tents housing displaced people in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
AFP footage showed rescuers working in the dark, evacuating a wounded baby from the site of the strike as well as two bodies, one of them in a white plastic bag and another wrapped in a blanket.
A separate strike on Khan Yunis killed three people, Bassal said, while another was killed in Gaza City.
The Israeli military did not comment on any specific incidents but said its air force had struck “more than 50 terror targets across the Gaza Strip” since Saturday.
While ceasefire negotiations have yet to produce a breakthrough, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, on Sunday “fully” endorsed a US plan to restore aid to Gaza, under a complete blockade since March 2.
Israel insists there is not a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip despite the warnings of aid groups and the United Nations, and says Hamas hijacks aid that enters the territory.
On Friday, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee outlined a plan in which a new foundation would lead the distribution of aid in Gaza, backed by Israeli military and private security.
The plan has drawn hefty international criticism for sidelining the United Nations and existing aid organisations, with the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, saying it was “impossible” to replace it in Gaza.
Hamas’s 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday that at least 2,720 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,8
