Cairo ceasefire talks end without breakthrough as Hamas, Israel hold firm on core demands

The latest round of negotiations in Cairo aimed at restoring the collapsed Gaza ceasefire and securing the release of Israeli hostages has ended without any significant breakthrough.

According to a Reuters report, citing Palestinian and Egyptian sources on Monday, Hamas maintained its stance that any agreement must lead to an end to the ongoing war.

In contrast, Israel, which restarted its military campaign in Gaza last month after a ceasefire agreed in January unravelled, has insisted that it will not cease its military operations until Hamas is decisively defeated, added the report.

Hamas has consistently rejected any proposals that would require it to lay down its arms.

Despite the fundamental disagreement, sources said that a Hamas delegation, led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya, had shown some willingness to negotiate the number of hostages it could release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, should a truce be extended.

An Egyptian source told Reuters the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages.

Israeli Minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said on Monday that Israel is now seeking the release of approximately 10 hostages— an increase from the five that Hamas had previously agreed to free.

According to the report, citing an Egyptian source, Hamas has requested additional time to respond to the latest proposal.

“Hamas has no problem, but it wants guarantees Israel agrees to begin the talks on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement leading to an end to the war,” Reuters quoted the Egyptian source said.

During the six-week first phase of the ceasefire that began in January, Hamas militants released 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.

However, the second phase — intended to start in early March and pave the way toward ending the war — never materialised.

Since resuming its military operations last month, Israel has killed more than 1,500 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to local authorities.

The renewed offensive has also displaced hundreds of thousands, with Israeli forces seizing significant areas of territory and enforcing a complete blockade on supplies entering the enclave.

At present, 59 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity, with Israeli officials estimating that up to 24 of them may still be alive.

Palestinians say the scale and intensity of Israeli strikes since the ceasefire collapsed have made this period one of the deadliest phases of the war, targeting a population already devastated and struggling to survive amid widespread destruction.

In Jabalia, a community on Gaza’s northern edge, rescue workers in orange vests were trying to smash through concrete with a sledgehammer to recover bodies buried underneath a building that collapsed in an Israeli strike.

Feet and a hand of one person could be seen under a concrete slab. Men carried a body wrapped in a blanket. Workers at the scene said as many as 25 people had been killed.

The Israeli military said it had struck there against militants planning an ambush.

In Khan Younis in the south, a camp of makeshift tents had been shredded into piles of debris by an airstrike. Families had returned to poke through the rubbish in search of belongings.

“We used to live in houses. They were destroyed. Now, our tents have been destroyed too. We don’t know where to stay,” Reuters quoted Ismail al-Raqab, who returned to the area after his family fled the raid before dawn, as saying.

The leaders of the two Arab countries that have led the ceasefire mediation efforts, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met in Doha on Sunday. The Egyptian source said Sisi had called for additional international guarantees for a truce agreement, beyond those provided by Egypt and Qatar themselves.

US President Donald Trump, who has backed Israel’s decision to resume its campaign and called for the Palestinian population of Gaza to leave the territory, said last week that progress was being made in returning the hostages.

The war was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 50,900 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to local health authorities.

With inputs from agencies