Efforts to secure a deal on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza are ongoing, Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad said, despite dimming hopes for a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mossad chief David Barnea met on Friday with his US counterpart, CIA Director William Burns, to promote a deal that would see hostages released, Mossad said in a statement. US President Joe Biden said that Mr Burns remained in the region.
“Contacts and cooperation with the mediators continue all the time in an effort to narrow the gaps and reach agreements,” Mossad said in the statement, which was distributed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Palestinian enclave and has been locked in a war with Israeli forces since its deadly 7 October rampage in southern Israel, have traded blame over the apparent deadlock in talks in the run-up to Ramadan, which begins on or around 10 March.
A Hamas source told journalists the group’s delegation was “unlikely” to make another visit to Cairo over the weekend fortalks.
Egypt, the US and Qatar have been mediating truce negotiations since January. The last deal struck was a week-long pause in fighting in November during which Hamas released more than 100 hostages and Israel freed about three times as many Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas blames Israel for the impasse in negotiations for a longer ceasefire and the release of 134 hostages believed still held in Gaza, saying it refuses to give guarantees to end the war or pull its forces from the enclave.
Mossad said Hamas was digging its heels in and aiming for violence in the region to spiral during Ramadan. Israeli officials have said that the war will end only with the defeat of Hamas, whose demands Mr Netanyahu has called “delusional”.
Mr Biden, who has repeatedly called for a temporary ceasefire, said in an MSNBC interview that it was “always possible” that a deal could be reached before Ramadan, but he did not elaborate.
While reiterating steadfast US support for Israel’s right to defend itself, Mr Biden told MSNBC his message to Mr Netanyahu about the need to limit Palestinian civilian casualties is that he is “hurting Israel more than helping” by acting in a way “contrary to what Israel stands for.”
Asked whether he would be willing to return to Israel, where he visited in mid-October in a show of solidarity, to address lawmakers, Mr Biden said “yes.”
Five months into Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza, health authorities there say nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The war was triggered by the 7 October attack by Hamas, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
At an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv, some demonstrators blocked a highway and were dragged away by police. Another rally was led by families of hostages who called for their loved ones’ release.
Charity workers loaded relief supplies bound for Gaza onto a barge in Cyprus as part of an international effort to launch a maritime corridor to a Palestinian population on the brink of famine.
Amid continuing tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have regularly exchanged fire, Lebanese security sources said an Israeli strike killed a family of five and injured nine people in southern Lebanon.
‘Red line’
In a somewhat contradictory exchange, Mr Biden told MSNBC that Israel’s threatened invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would be his “red line” for Mr Netanyahu but then immediately backtracked, saying there was no red line and “I’m never going to leave Israel.”
Concerned about further heavy civilian casualties, Mr Biden has urged Mr Netanyahu not to launch a major offensive in Rafah unless Israel has first created a plan for mass evacuation from the last area of Gaza it has not yet invaded with ground forces.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering in the Rafah area.
Israel’s offensive has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe. Much of the enclave is reduced to rubble and most of its population is displaced, with the UN warning of disease and starvation.
