Blinken calls for pressure to bring the truce agreement in Gaza to the “finish line” by Reuters

Written by James MacKenzie and Nidal Al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday called for a final push for a ceasefire in Gaza before President Joe Biden leaves office, after a Hamas official told Reuters that the movement had removed a list of 34 hostages as the first… Who are they leaving? Free under truce.

“We very much want to reach the finish line in the next two weeks, which is the time we have left,” Blinken said at a press conference in South Korea in response to a question about whether a ceasefire agreement was close.

Israel sent a team of mid-level officials to Qatar to hold talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt. Some Arab media reports said they were expected to be joined by David Barnea, head of the Mossad, who is leading the negotiations. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not comment.

It remains unclear how close the two sides are, with some signs of movement but little indication of a shift in some key demands that have so far blocked any truce for more than a year.

US President-elect Donald Trump said there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held by Hamas are not released before his inauguration on January 20, which is now seen in the region as an unofficial deadline for a truce agreement.

According to Gaza health officials, nearly 46,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack on Gaza. The attack was launched after Hamas militants stormed Israeli territory in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli statistics.

It is believed that more than 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, and Hamas says it will not release them without an agreement that ends the war with Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will not stop its offensive until Hamas is dismantled as a military and ruling force and all hostages are released.

A Hamas official told Reuters that the movement had removed the list provided by Israel of the names of 34 hostages who could be released in the first phase of the truce. The list provided by the official includes female soldiers, in addition to the elderly, civilians and minors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the list had been presented by Israel to Qatari mediators since July, and Israel has not yet received any confirmation or comment from Hamas regarding whether the hostages on it are alive.

“Israel will continue to work relentlessly for the return of all our hostages,” she said in a statement.

The child dies from the cold

Israeli forces, which have intensified their operations in recent weeks, continued their bombardment across the Strip, killing at least 48 people and wounding 75 others over the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Severe winter weather continued to impact hundreds of thousands of people displaced into temporary shelters, with officials saying a 35-day-old baby died from exposure to the cold, at least the eighth victim of the cold in the past two weeks.

Officials from Al Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip said that an Israeli air strike on a school complex housing displaced families resulted in the injury of at least 40 people.

While the Israeli military says Hamas has been largely destroyed as an organized military force, its fighters continue to hold out in the ruins of Gaza, which has been reduced to a largely barren wasteland by months of bombing.

Israeli police said that three missiles were launched on Monday from Gaza, one of which hit a building in the nearby Israeli city of Sderot, without causing any casualties.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is a separate Palestinian territory and has witnessed an escalation of violence since the beginning of the Gaza war, gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded several others when they opened fire on a car and a bus near the Israeli settlement of Kedumim.