Top US envoys and prominent regional figures have joined the third day of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Egypt on President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are in Sharm el-Sheikh along with Qatar’s prime minister and Turkey’s intelligence chief for what is expected to be a key day indicating whether progress can be made.
As the negotiations resumed, a senior Hamas official told the BBC it had shown “the necessary positivity” and submitted a list of the Palestinian prisoners it wanted Israel to release in exchange for the hostages being held in Gaza.
Israeli media cited officials as saying there was “cautious optimism”.
Trump also struck a positive tone, saying: “There’s a real chance that we could do something.”
Witkoff and Kushner, who served as Trump’s Middle East adviser during his first term, flew into the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh early on Wednesday for the talks, which resumed at 11:00 (08:00 GMT).
Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, and the head of Turkish intelligence, Ibrahim Kalin, also joined them.
Sheikh Mohammed’s attendance was aimed at “pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement”, an official told Reuters news agency.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile said that Trump had asked him during a recent phone call to “persuade” Hamas to accept his plan.
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is also due to arrive on Wednesday afternoon.
A senior Hamas official told the BBC on Wednesday morning that its delegation had submitted a list of the Palestinian prisoners it wanted Israel to release in exchange for the 48 hostages still held in Gaza, up to 20 of whom are still alive.
The list included several of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat.
Barghouti, who is seen as a potential successor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is serving five life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted in 2004 of planning attacks that led to five civilians being killed.
Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was sentenced to 30 years after being convicted in 2008 of heading an “illegal terrorist organisation” and involvement in attacks, including the assassination of an Israeli minister in 2001.
The Hamas official who spoke to the BBC said the group had “shown the necessary positivity and responsibility to achieve the required progress and complete the agreement”, but acknowledged that differences remained between the two sides.
“Mediators are making major efforts to remove any obstacles to implementing a ceasefire,” he added, noting that “a spirit of optimism is spreading among all participants.”
However, a Palestinian official familiar with talks told the BBC that there were “deep gaps” over how Hamas and Israel interpreted Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
The official said disagreements had emerged over nearly all the five key issues currently being discussed:
- a permanent ceasefire
- the exchange of the hostages still held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Gaza
- the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza
- arrangements for humanitarian aid deliveries, and
- post-war governance of the territory.
Earlier, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper cited Israeli officials as saying they were “cautiously optimistic” that the talks could lead to an agreement.
The officials believed “Trump’s success at enlisting the Turks to the negotiations played a key role in persuading Hamas to accept his plan”, it added.
In a statement on Tuesday marking the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which sparked the war, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not mention the Sharm el-Sheikh talks but told Israelis that they were in “a time of fateful decisions”.
He added that Israel would “continue to act to achieve all the aims of the war: return all the hostages, destroy the Hamas regime, and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel”.
Hamas’s chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, whom Israel targeted last month in an air strike in Qatar’s capital, told Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV the group had come to have “serious and responsible negotiations”.
Hayya said Hamas was ready to reach a deal, but it needed “real guarantees” from Trump and the international community that the war would end and not restart.
Trump told reporters at the White House that the US would do “everything possible to make sure everyone adheres to the deal” if Hamas and Israel could agree one.
“I think there’s a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East. It’s something even beyond the Gaza situation. We want a release of the hostages immediately,” he said.
UN Secretary General António Guterres also called on all parties to agree to Trump’s plan, describing it as a “historic opportunity” to “bring this tragic conflict to an end”.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages.
At least 67,183 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 20,179 children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies, although Israel disputes them.
The ministry has said another 460 people have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war, including 182 since a famine was confirmed in Gaza City in August by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and said Israel is facilitating deliveries of food and other aid.
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