Newly resumed Gaza ceasefire talks are expected to continue on Friday, US and regional officials have said, amid efforts to defuse intensifying tensions across the Middle East.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday that negotiations were under way in Doha with the participation of officials from Israel, the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
“We do not anticipate coming out of these talks today with the deal,” Kirby said. “In fact, I’d expect the talks to continue into tomorrow. This is vital work. The remaining obstacles can be overcome, and we must bring this process to a close.”
Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV also cited a senior Egyptian source as saying that the talks will resume on Friday. The Reuters news agency reported a similar account, citing an unidentified official briefed on the situation.
A journalist for the US outlet Axios reported that the negotiations will stretch for another day, as well, and that the Israeli delegation will remain in Doha on Thursday night.
The talks kicked off on Thursday as health officials in Gaza confirmed that the Israeli military has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the enclave since the start of the war, underscoring the horrific toll of the conflict.
Multiphased proposal
While there are few public details about the content of the negotiations, the talks are meant to finalise a ceasefire agreement presented by US President Joe Biden late in May.
The US-backed deal would see a multiphased effort to end the war, starting with a six-week pause in fighting that would enable the release of some Israeli captives held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
In the second phase, there would be a permanent end to the fighting and the release of all remaining Israeli captives. The final part of the agreement would include the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the Israeli offensive.
On Wednesday, Hamas and some of its allied factions released a joint statement stressing that any talks should focus on implementing the already agreed-upon proposals.
The Palestinian groups said a deal must include “a comprehensive end to the [Israeli] aggression, complete withdrawal of the occupation, breaking the siege and opening the crossing, reconstruction and achieving a serious prisoner exchange”.
The statement raised questions on whether Hamas would participate in the negotiations.
In a statement on Thursday, Husam Badran, a member of the Hamas political bureau, reiterated the group’s position.
Badran said Hamas is looking at the talks in Doha through a “strategic perspective” of ending the war on Gaza. He did not confirm the group’s participation in the talks.
“The obstacle to reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is the continuation of Israeli evasion,” Badran added.
The Palestinian group usually does not hold face-to-face negotiations with Israeli officials but has previously engaged indirectly with the talks through mediators.
US officials said the ongoing discussions in Doha will follow the format of previous negotiations, where Qatari and Egyptian mediators would convey messages to Hamas officials in Qatar, who in turn would communicate with the group’s leadership in Gaza – namely Yahya Sinwar.
“In the past, it has worked very similar to how it’s working in Doha today, where mediators will sit and discuss, work things out, and then those mediators will be in touch with Hamas, and then the Hamas leaders in Doha then communicate directly with Mr Sinwar for final answers,” Kirby said.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Thursday that the group is able to communicate “smoothly” with its newly appointed chief Sinwar, despite security measures to protect the Gaza-based leader.
Reporting from Doha, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom said the extent of Hamas’s participation in the negotiations is unclear.
“There’s just very few concrete details emerging from the talks that are taking place behind closed doors here in Doha,” he said.
“But even though these are high-stakes talks at a time of low expectations, there seems to be more of a mood of cautious optimism at this hour. More and more people close to the talks [are] suggesting that these talks will last at least into a second day, possibly beyond that.”
Regional tensions
The US, which has approved more than $14bn in military aid to Israel to help fund the war on Gaza, previously blamed Hamas solely for failure to reach a deal.
But recent media reports in Israel and the US have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the one scuttling the talks by adding new demands.
On Thursday, Kirby refused to assign blame for the inability to reach a ceasefire so far.
“The way negotiations work is that you start with some text on a piece of paper, and both sides work on that text. Usually, both sides make amendments to that text,” he said.
“You cycle it back around again, you have some more discussions about the amendments, and that leads to even more discussions, and on and on you go.”
Still, his remarks mark a sharp shift from the US tone in June when Washington insisted that Hamas is the “only” obstacle to a ceasefire deal.
Washington has vetoed three United Nations Security Council measures that would have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The US, Qatar and Egypt had called for this round of talks in a joint statement last week, urging Israel and Hamas “to close all remaining gaps and commence implementation of the deal without further delay”.
The negotiations come amid growing fear of regional escalation with Iran pledging to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah has also promised to retaliate for the killing of one of its top commanders in an Israeli air strike in Beirut hours before the assassination of Haniyeh.
It is not clear whether Iran and Hezbollah would stand down should a ceasefire materialise in Gaza.
Kirby suggested that the delayed Iranian response does not mean that an attack on Israel will not happen.
“We know that Iran has made some preparations. We believe that, should they choose to attack, that they could do it with little or no notice and that it could come soon,” he told reporters.
“But we obviously would like to prevent that outcome, which is why … we continue to be involved in some pretty intensive diplomacy to try to keep this situation from escalating.”