Israel government authorities have confirmed that they are sending a negotiating team on Sunday to participate in ceasefire negotiations with Hamas in Qatar. “In light of an assessment of the situation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed that the invitation to proximity talks be accepted and that the contacts for the return of our hostages – on the basis of the Qatari proposal that Israel has agreed to – be continued,” reads a statement issued late on Saturday through the official X account for the prime minister of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday.
The statement also declared that “the changes that Hamas is seeking to make in the Qatari proposal were conveyed to us last night and are unacceptable to Israel.” On Friday, representatives from Hamas said that the organization “has submitted a positive response” to the latest proposal from Trump for a 60-day ceasefire, while still maintaining that further talks are needed over a range of issues. According to Palestinian official familiar with the talks, these include: an increase in the flow of humanitarian aid through the UN and other humanitarian agencies; a pullback of Israeli military forces to positions held on March 2 (before Israel broke the last ceasefire agreement); and a commitment beyond the sixty days to negotiate for a permanent end to the fighting.
Israel and the United States have backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an aid organization registered in Delaware meant to distribute food in the Gaza strip, in order to bypass other aid organizations and the United Nations, whose access has been blocked by Israeli forces. With the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) having erased any form of food system on the strip – destroying greenhouses and meager crops, cutting off water, and maintaining a full blockade to prevent any form of trade through Egypt, Lebanon, or the Mediterranean Sea – the population of Gaza is totally dependent on whatever aid organizations can bring in, and with those supplies severely limited by the Israeli government, famine has become pervasive.
Since the GHF took over aid operations in May, at least 613 Palestinians have been killed while trying to receive aid, with numerous reports of the IDF and armed private guards contracted by the GHF firing indiscriminately on crowds of unarmed civilians, sometimes from tanks. Some Israeli soldiers have described the situation to local news outlets as a “killing field.”
A large and growing number of humanitarian organizations and academic experts, including Israelis, have declared Israel’s invasion of Gaza a genocide.
