Israeli negotiators are heading to Qatar after the group dropped calls for a permanent end to hostilities and agreed a 40-day pause
Israeli negotiators are expected to arrive in Qatar on Sunday amid intense new efforts to bring the war in Gaza to at least a temporary halt, after Hamas abandoned key ceasefire demands last week following a series of setbacks.
In recent days, the militant organisation has been disappointed by the failure of its calls for a wave of protest during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, angered by the appointment without consultation of a new prime minister by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and suffered the possible death of a key military commander in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
On Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he had approved plans for a military assault on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which is Hamas’s last main stronghold but also now home to more than 1 million people, mostly displaced from elsewhere in the territory.
The developments have weakened Hamas’s negotiating position even as casualties continue to rise in Gaza and global outrage continues to grow. On Saturday, ministry of health officials in the territory, which Hamas has ruled since 2007, said the total number of deaths since the beginning of the Israeli offensive had reached 31,490, mostly women and children.
Sources close to Hamas said its leaders now recognise that they need to show Palestinians “a big victory” to avoid a popular backlash after the immense destruction and loss of lives in five months of war.
“They know now that they need to demonstrate that they are really on the side of the people,” said one source.
Though the militant Islamist organisation is sticking to its demand for the release of between about 500 and 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for 40 of more than 100 Israeli hostages that it is thought to be holding in Gaza, it has dropped a demand for a permanent ceasefire and has said it will accept a 40-day initial pause in hostilities.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said on Friday that Netanyahu was “not interested in reaching an agreement”.
Israeli officials now believe that Marwan Issa, the deputy military leader of Hamas in Gaza, died in an airstrike a week ago that targeted a tunnel complex under the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. All Hamas communications systems between senior leaders – which rely on encrypted apps and couriers – went silent for more than 72 hours after the strike, as has happened on several previous occasions when senior Hamas leaders have been killed.
