US sees major ‘breakthrough’ in Israel-Hamas talks
Washington: Hamas made a pretty significant adjustment in its position over a potential hostage release deal with Israel, a senior US administration official said on Thursday (Friday AEST), expressing hope that it would lead to a pact that would be a step to a permanent ceasefire.
Protesters hold signs during a demonstration against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government in late June in Tel Aviv.Credit: Getty Images
“We’ve had a breakthrough,” the official told reporters on a conference call, adding there were still outstanding issues related to implementation of the agreement and that a deal was not expected to be closed in a period of days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden on Thursday he has decided to send a delegation to resume stalled negotiations on a hostage release deal with Hamas.
The US official said Biden was encouraged that Netanyahu was authorising his team to join the talks.
“We do believe there is a pretty significant opening here, and we welcome the prime minister’s readiness to try to seize that opening by empowering his negotiating team to engage directly” in Doha here over the coming days,” the official said.
An Israeli settler at the illegal West Bank settlement of Evyatar.Credit: Getty
A source in the Israeli negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a real chance of achieving agreement after Hamas made a revised proposal on the terms of a deal.
“The proposal put forward by Hamas includes a very significant breakthrough,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli government, meanwhile, has approved plans to build nearly 5300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a monitoring group said on Thursday, the latest in a campaign to accelerate settlement expansion, aimed at cementing Israeli control over the territory and preventing the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Word of the decision emerged as diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the nine-month war in Gaza appeared to be stirring back to life after a weekslong hiatus.
Fighting intensified between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, with the militant group saying Thursday it fired more than 200 rockets and exploding drones into northern Israel to avenge the killing of a senior commander in an Israeli airstrike the day before.
Months of exchanges have literally set the Israeli-Lebanese border ablaze and raised fears of a potentially even more devastating war in the Middle East. Hezbollah has said it will halt its attacks if there is a cease-fire between Hamas — a fellow Iran-backed ally — and Israel.
Israel’s turbocharged settlement drive threatens to further stoke tensions in the West Bank, which has seen a surge in violence since the war in Gaza began on October 7.
The Israeli anti-settlement monitoring Peace Now said the government’s Higher Planning Council had approved or advanced plans for 5295 homes in dozens of settlements across the West Bank. It also “legalised” three informal outposts as new neighbourhoods of existing settlements in the Jordan Valley and near the city of Hebron.
Reuters, AP