Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a delegation of senior officials to Qatar to negotiate the release of hostages and a Gaza ceasefire deal, his office said on Saturday.
Netanyahu met in Jerusalem with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a representative of current US President Joe Biden and senior Israeli officials, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
After the meeting, Netanyahu ordered the heads of the Mossad spy agency and the Shin Bet security agency, as well as General Nitzan Alon and foreign policy adviser Ofir Falk, to depart for Doha “to pursue an agreement to release our hostages.” ” Instructed. Said.
The United States has been mediating talks with Qatar and Egypt for more than a year to secure the release of the hostages as well as end the war in Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for those held in Gaza, welcomed the announcement, calling it “a historic opportunity to secure the release of all our loved ones”.
“Leave no stone unturned and return with an agreement that ensures the return of all hostages up to the last day,” it said in a statement.
Indirect talks between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas resumed in Qatar last weekend.
Discussions currently focus on the immediate release of hostages taken by the Islamic group during its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Biden, who will leave office on Jan. 20, said Thursday that “real progress” has been made in the talks.
Trump, who will succeed Biden, promised “there will be a heavy price to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration.
The war in Gaza was sparked by a Hamas offensive, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
During the attack, Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom lived in the Gaza Strip, 34 of whom were declared dead by Israeli forces.
Israeli retaliatory military strikes in Gaza have killed 46,537 people, most of them civilians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory considered reliable by the United Nations.
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