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Israel, Hamas Signal Readiness for Next Ceasefire Talks as Mediators Push for Progress
Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, March 5, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
Israel and Hamas signaled on Saturday they were preparing for the next phase of ceasefire negotiations, as mediators pushed ahead with talks to extend the fragile 42-day truce that began in January.
Hamas said there were “positive indicators” for the start of the ceasefire’s second-phase talks but did not elaborate.
Israel also said it was preparing for talks. “Israel has accepted the invitation of the mediators backed by the US, and will send a delegation to Doha on Monday in an effort to advance the negotiations,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
A delegation from Hamas is engaging in ceasefire talks in Cairo with Egyptian mediators who have been helping facilitate the talks along with officials from Qatar. They aim to proceed to the next stage of the deal, which could open the way to ending the war.
“We affirm our readiness to engage in the second-phase negotiations in a way that meets the demands of our people, and we call for intensified efforts to aid the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade on our suffering people,” Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua said in a statement.
In a later statement reporting its delegation’s meeting with the head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, Hamas affirmed the group’s approval of forming a committee of what it described as “national and independent” characters to run Gaza until elections.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier said Cairo had worked in cooperation with Palestinians on creating an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats entrusted with the governance of Gaza after the end of the Israel-Gaza war.
His remarks came during the Arab summit which adopted Egypt’s alternative reconstruction plan for Gaza, as opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision.
Even as diplomacy continued, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians in Rafah in southern Gaza on Saturday, medical sources said.
The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a drone that crossed from Israel into southern Gaza and “several suspects” who tried to collect it in what appeared to be a botched smuggling attempt.
The strike came after an Israeli drone strike killed two people in Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said it attacked a group of suspected terrorists operating near its troops in northern Gaza and planting an explosive device in the ground.
The Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect in January calls for the remaining 59 hostages in Hamas captivity to be freed in a second phase, during which final plans would be negotiated for an end to the war.
The first phase of the ceasefire ended last week. Israel has since imposed a total blockade on all goods entering the enclave, demanding that Hamas free the remaining hostages without beginning the negotiations to end the Gaza war.
Fighting has been halted since January 19 and Hamas has released 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Israeli authorities believe fewer than half of the remaining 59 hostages are still alive.
The post Israel, Hamas Signal Readiness for Next Ceasefire Talks as Mediators Push for Progress first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.