Netanyahu agrees to send the head of Israeli intelligence to Qatar for ceasefire talks in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence service to participate in ceasefire negotiations in Qatar, his office announced on Saturday, in an indication of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.

It was not immediately clear when David Barnea will travel to the Qatari capital, Doha, to attend the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the armed Hamas movement. Its presence means that the high-ranking Israeli officials who would have to sign any agreement are now participating.

A brief ceasefire was achieved only once during the 15 months of war, and that was in the first weeks of fighting. The talks brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly faltered since then.

Netanyahu insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas insists on a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the largely destroyed area.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Thursday that more than 46,000 Palestinians were killed in the war, the majority of them women and children, although it did not specify the number of fighters or civilians.

The head of the Israeli internal security service, Shin Bet, and military and political advisors will also be sent to Qatar. Netanyahu’s office said the decision came after a meeting with his defense minister, security officials and negotiators “on behalf of the outgoing and incoming US administrations.”

The office also published a photo showing Netanyahu with President-elect Donald Trump’s new special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who was in Qatar this week.

The families of nearly 100 hostages still being held in Gaza after their capture in the October 7, 2023 armed attack that sparked the war are pressing Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring their loved ones home.

The recovery of the bodies of the two hostages last week renewed fears that time is running out. Hamas said that after months of intense fighting, it was no longer certain who was alive or dead.

A statement issued by a group representing the families of some of the hostages said, “Return with an agreement that guarantees the return of all the hostages, even the last ones, the living ones to be rehabilitated and the deceased to be properly buried in their homeland.”

Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in Gaza in the attack that started the war, according to Israeli statistics. A truce in November 2023 led to the release of more than 100 hostages, while others were rescued or their remains recovered over the past year. The Israeli army says it killed more than 17,000 militants in its attack, without providing evidence.

Israel and Hamas are also under pressure from outgoing US President Joe Biden and Trump to reach an agreement before the latter’s inauguration on January 20.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that the agreement was “very close” and expressed hope that it would be completed before the diplomacy was handed over to the incoming Trump administration. But American officials have expressed similar optimism on several occasions over the past year.

Issues in the talks included determining which hostages would be released in the first part of an interim ceasefire agreement, which Palestinian prisoners would be released and the extent of any withdrawal of Israeli forces from population centers in Gaza.

Inside Gaza

On Saturday, an airstrike killed a five-year-old girl and two of her male relatives in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where they were seen by an Associated Press team.

The girl’s body, who was wearing a pink jacket, was wrapped in aluminum foil and placed on the morgue floor. Her father knelt down and pressed his face to hers. “machine!” He mourned.

Another Israeli air strike killed at least eight Palestinians, including two children and two women, in a school turned shelter in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense. She added that the raid on the Halawa School, which shelters displaced people in the Jabalia area, also resulted in the injury of 30 others, including 19 children.

The Israeli army said it bombed a Hamas command center in a former school in Jabalia, without providing evidence.

The raid resulted in the killing of four people in a street in Gaza City, according to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal. Overall, the Gaza Ministry of Health said that at least 32 bodies arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours.

“I ask the world, do you hear us? Do we exist?” Hamza Saleh, one of the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people who were displaced from their homes, said. He spoke Friday in the southern city of Khan Yunis as children and others scrambled for food aid and hunger grew.