 "Freed Palestinian prisoners gesture out of the windows as they arrive in a bus after being released from an Israeli jail as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. Reuters")
Israel on Thursday said that it is sending negotiators to Cairo for talks aimed at extending the first phase of a ceasefire set to expire in two days.
The move appears focused on securing the release of more hostages while postponing any final agreement regarding Gaza’s future.
The announcement followed Hamas’s handover of four bodies of hostages, marking the last releases under the initial six-week ceasefire that began on January 19. Talks for a second phase, which would seek a permanent resolution to the conflict, are yet to commence.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters in Jerusalem that the delegation would be assessing whether there is common ground for negotiating an extension of the truce.
“We said we are ready to make the framework longer in return to release more hostages. If it is possible, we’ll do that,” Reuters quoted Saar as saying.
According to Reuters, citing two government officials, Israel was seeking to extend the initial phase, with Hamas freeing three hostages each week in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel.
The warring parties have not clarified what will happen if the first phase of the ceasefire expires on Saturday without an agreement. Egypt and Qatar are mediating discussions between Israel and Hamas, with support from the United States.
The initial ceasefire phase involved the transfer of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for approximately 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. During this time, fighting was halted, and Israeli troops pulled back from some positions in Gaza.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsNegotiations for the second phase, aimed at securing the release of the remaining hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, were scheduled to begin earlier this month.
Israel’s government is under public pressure to maintain the ceasefire in order to free the remaining hostages, while factions within the right-wing government advocate for a return to military action to achieve the goal of dismantling Hamas.
Israel reported that three of the four hostages whose bodies were returned overnight had been killed while in captivity, and the fourth was killed on the day of the Hamas-led raid that initiated the conflict.
The dire condition of hostages handed over in recent weeks, including some who appeared emaciated and others Israel says were murdered by their captors, including a baby, have intensified Israeli public anger, potentially impacting talks to extend the truce.
Hamas said on Thursday it was ready to begin talks on the second phase and that the only way remaining hostages in Gaza would be freed is through commitment to the ceasefire.
Israeli authorities believe fewer than half of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza are still alive.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen told public broadcaster Kan that Israel demanded that the military stay in the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs the length of Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
Israeli troops are supposed to start withdrawing from the Gaza-Egypt border area on Saturday, when the first phase of the ceasefire is set to end.
Cohen said Israel was in a stronger position to negotiate now than it was on the eve of the ceasefire because it has full backing from the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, which this month began shipping heavy bombs.
The final four bodies of hostages in the deal’s first phase were handed over in return for 643 Palestinians either detained by Israeli forces in Gaza or jailed in Israel. The bodies were returned without a public display of the coffins before crowds in Gaza, after such displays angered Israel.
President Isaac Herzog in a post on X confirmed the bodies were those of Tsachi Idan, Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur, all abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack from their kibbutz homes near Gaza.
‘Some Solace’
“In this painful moment, there is some solace in knowing that they will be laid to rest in dignity in Israel,” he wrote.
Idan, Yahalomi and Elgarat were murdered in captivity in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, while Mantzur was killed on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas attack.
Hamas took 251 hostages and killed about 1,200 people in its raid on southern Israeli communities, according to Israel. Around half of the hostages were freed during the war’s only previous truce in November 2023, and others have been recovered alive or dead during the war.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, Palestinian authorities say. The war has laid waste to the crowded coastal enclave and displaced the majority of its population multiple times.
The Palestinians released overnight include 445 men and 24 women and minors detained in Gaza, as well as 151 prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis, according to a Hamas source.
One bus transported detainees from Israel’s Ofer prison in the Occupied West Bank to Ramallah where cheering crowds had gathered to greet them.
Bilal Yassin, 42, told Reuters he had been in Israeli detention for 20 years.
“Our sacrifices and imprisonment were not in vain,” Yassin said. “We had confidence in the resistance.”
Nearly 100 Palestinian prisoners were handed over to Egypt, where they will stay until another country accepts them, according to a Hamas source and Egyptian media.
With inputs from agencies