Israel told Egypt and Qatar it will not take part in another round of negotiations until Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists provide a list of hostages who are alive and a reasonable number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange.
This from newsmax.com.
American citizens taken hostage by Hamas.
Israel and Hamas appear to be far from a deal, which reportedly includes a six-week pause in fighting in the Gaza Strip, and the release of about 40 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 400 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The pause also would allow for humanitarian aid to be delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.
Axios reported Friday:
Egypt and Qatar promised Israel that if it sent a delegation to Doha this week for talks on the humanitarian aspects of the deal, they would get answers from Hamas on which hostages are still alive and put pressure on the group to be flexible on the number of Palestinians prisoners it demands to be released
But, according to Axios:
[S]enior Israeli officials said that after three days of talks in Qatar, the Israeli delegation returned to Israel on Thursday without answers.
An Israeli official told Axios:
The mediators promised that Hamas would give numbers and that didn’t happen.
The developments put a crimp in Joe Biden’s declaration earlier this week that a deal could be reached by Monday.
An Israeli official told Axios:
There is no point in starting another round of talks until we receive the lists of which of the hostages are alive and until Hamas gives its answer regarding the ‘ratio’ that defines how many prisoners will be released for each hostage.
Senior Israeli officials also told Axios:
[T]hey are waiting to see if U.S. pressure on the mediators and the personal phone calls Biden made Thursday with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar will compel Hamas to provide answers this weekend.
International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the moslem holy month of Ramadan begins—approximately March 10. A deal would also likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine.
NOTE: As of Friday, March 1, aid had begun to be air dropped by a host of nations providing the relief, including the United States.
U.S. officials have said:
U.S. and Jordanian C-130 planes taking off from Jordan dropped 66 pallets of food, containing a total of 38,000 meals at mid-afternoon local time, in the first of a series of airdrops.
A senior U.S. administration official said Saturday:
Israel has essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt.
Further:
The Israelis ‘have more or less accepted’ the proposal, which includes the six-week cease-fire as well as the release by Hamas of hostages considered vulnerable, which includes the sick, the wounded, the elderly, and women.
Right now, the ball is in the court of Hamas and we are continuing to push this as hard as we possibly can.
God speed to Israel and to the hostages held by Hamas.
