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Hamas Says It Is Willing to Move Ahead With Gaza Ceasefire
Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas signaled on Thursday that a crisis threatening to unravel the Gaza ceasefire deal could be avoided despite uncertainty over the number of hostages due to be released on Saturday and disagreements over aid supplies.
The 42-day ceasefire has appeared close to failure this week amid accusations on both sides of violations to the agreement sealed last month with the help of Egyptian and Qatari mediators and US support.
Hamas said it did not want the deal to collapse, though it rejected what it called the “language of threats and intimidation” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. They have said the ceasefire should be canceled if the hostages are not released.
“Accordingly, Hamas reaffirms its commitment to implementing the agreement as signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timeline,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas, whose Gaza chief leader Khalil Al-Hayya is visiting Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials, also said both Egyptian and Qatari mediators would press on with efforts “to remove obstacles and close gaps.”
This week Hamas accused Israel of failing to respect stipulations calling for a massive increase in aid deliveries and said it would not hand over three hostages due to be released on Saturday until the issue was resolved.
In response, Netanyahu ordered reserves to be called up and threatened to resume combat operations that have been paused for almost a month unless the hostages were returned.
Israeli minister Avi Dichter, a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israeli public radio on Thursday that he did not believe Hamas would be able to get out of the agreement.
“There’s a deal, they won’t be able to give anything less than what is in the deal,” he said. “I don’t believe that Hamas can behave otherwise.”
Egyptian security sources told Reuters they expected heavy construction equipment to enter on Thursday and if that happened then Hamas would release hostages on Saturday.
The standoff between Israel and Hamas has threatened to reignite their conflict, which has devastated Gaza and taken the Middle East to the brink of a wider regional war.
Egyptian and Qatari officials have been working to avoid a breakdown and a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort said both sides had agreed to go ahead with the ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
TENTS
The talks in Cairo have focused on issues such as Israel‘s allowing the entry of mobile homes, tents, medical and fuel supplies, and heavy machinery needed for the removal of rubble, Hamas said.
Salama Marouf, head of the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza, told Reuters only 73,000 of the required 200,000 tents had arrived in the enclave, while no mobile homes had been permitted so far.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza, said 400,000 tents had so far been allowed in, while countries meant to supply mobile homes had not yet sent them.
International aid officials confirmed that aid was coming in despite considerable logistical problems, though they cautioned that far more was needed.
“We have seen improvement in some ways, but certainly, the response is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of so many people who face so much destruction and loss,” said Shaina Low, an official from the Norwegian Refugee Council based in the Jordanian capital Amman.
She said shelter materials were going in, despite Israeli restrictions on so-called “dual use” materials, which could also be used for military purposes.
DOUBTS
Adding to doubts this week about the ceasefire deal has been hostile reaction in the Arab world to Trump’s comments that Palestinians should be moved from Gaza to allow it to be developed as a regional economic hub under US control.
Under the ceasefire, Hamas has so far released 16 Israeli hostages from an initial group of 33 children, women, and older men agreed to be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, who were largely imprisoned for involvement in terrorist activity, in the first stage of a multi-phase deal.
Hamas also freed five Thai hostages in an unscheduled release.
Negotiations on a second phase of the agreement, which mediators had hoped would agree the release of the remaining hostages as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, were supposed to be already underway in Doha but an Israeli team returned home on Monday, two days after arriving.
The threat to cancel the 42-day ceasefire that formed the basis of the agreement has drawn thousands of Israeli protesters onto the streets this week, calling on the government to stick with the deal in order to bring the remaining hostages home.
The war in Gaza erupted after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed at least 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken as hostages.
Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in the neighboring coastal enclave.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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