Israel says unclear if there is ‘common ground to negotiate’.
Talks have started in Egypt for the second phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza, the first phase of which ends on Saturday.
Officials from Israel joined mediators from Qatar and the United States in Cairo on Thursday for “intensive discussions”, Egypt’s state information service said.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, may join the talks.
Talks over the second phase of the ceasefire are meant to negotiate a complete end to the war, including the return of all remaining living captives in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory.
According to Israel, there are 59 captives remaining in Gaza, 24 of whom are still believed to be alive.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the government is uncertain about the prospects of reaching a deal, adding the Israeli team in Cairo would have to “see whether we have common ground to negotiate”.
“We said we are ready to extend the framework [of phase one] in return for the release of more hostages,” Sa’ar said at a news conference Thursday. “If it is possible, we’ll do that.”
It remains to be seen whether a deal can be reconciled given the declared war objectives of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, with US President Donald Trump’s backing, has pledged to eliminate Hamas.
“Israel has been telling us for months now, with word and deed, that it doesn’t actually intend to end the war,” Mohamad Elmasry, a political analyst at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.
“Barring Hamas leaving Gaza, which is not going to happen, Israel is fully intent I think on going back to war.”
Hamas says Israel ‘planning to escalate again’
The negotiations come after Hamas handed over the remains of four captives overnight on Thursday, in exchange for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, in the last planned swap of the ceasefire’s first phase.
Israel had postponed the release of 46 of these prisoners, all women and children, due to delays in verifying the bodies of four of the captives it received.
Further violating the terms of the deal, Israeli officials said they would not withdraw as planned from the Philadelphi Corridor – the long strip of land bordering Egypt. Israel’s military is supposed to begin pulling out of the corridor on Saturday and finish doing so within eight days.
Hamas official Basem Naim told Al Jazeera he believes Israel is “planning to escalate again” despite Hamas being “committed to the deal”.
“We have already done our duties according to the deal, and we are ready to continue implementing the deal,” said Naim, adding the group should be actively involved in phase two negotiations.
The ceasefire, which began on January 19, halted 15 months of war that erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,100 people and took more than 200 captive.
Israel’s war in Gaza has since killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials, while displacing more than 90 percent of the enclave’s population and destroying most of the Gaza Strip.
