Hamas frees 12 more hostages as CIA and Mossad chiefs hold talks in Qatar

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Hamas freed a fifth consecutive group of hostages on Tuesday, as a pause within the preventing held regardless of Israeli troops and militants briefly exchanging hearth in northern Gaza.

The Israeli army on Tuesday night stated 12 launched hostages — 10 Israelis and two overseas nationals — had been transported from Gaza by the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross and had been with its troops. In return, Israel has agreed to launch 30 Palestinians from its prisons on Tuesday.

The alternate got here a day after the warring sides agreed to increase what was initially a four-day ceasefire involving hostage and prisoner swaps by 48 hours.

In an try to lengthen the short-term truce additional to safe extra hostage releases, CIA director Invoice Burns and the pinnacle of Israel’s Mossad spy company David Barnea had been in Doha on Tuesday to carry talks with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Egyptian officers.

The main focus of their discussions was on learn how to construct on the settlement, prolong the pause in hostilities and safe the discharge of extra hostages, an official briefed on the talks stated.

Mediators had been hopeful Hamas would be capable of find one other 20 ladies and youngsters being held in Gaza as a way to prolong the present settlement by an extra two days past Wednesday, the official stated.

“They [Hamas] are on the lookout for them now,” this individual added.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one other militant group in Gaza, on Tuesday stated it had launched “various hostages”, with out specifying what number of or when.

Nonetheless, the fragility of the truce was underscored when Hamas militants and Israeli troops exchanged hearth in northern Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, within the first important violation of the settlement.

Each side accused one another of sparking the clashes, throughout which some Israeli troopers had been frivolously wounded.

Qatar, the US and Egypt brokered the unique deal underneath which Hamas agreed to launch 50 ladies and youngsters held in Gaza. In return, Israel agreed to pause its offensive in opposition to the militant group in Gaza for 4 days, permit extra help into the besieged strip and launch 150 Palestinian ladies and youngsters held in Israeli prisons.

The talks in Doha on Tuesday had been specializing in the following class of hostages that could possibly be launched and what the parameters of a brand new settlement might seem like, the official briefed on the talks stated.

Hamas and different Palestinian militants seized about 240 hostages through the devastating October 7 assault on southern Israel that triggered the struggle.

The captives embrace ladies, kids and Israeli troopers and reservists. The most certainly class of hostages to be launched after the ladies and youngsters can be a small group of aged individuals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been underneath strain to proceed the short-term truce as a way to free extra hostages. He has vowed to crush Hamas and eradicate it from Gaza after the militant group’s October 7 assault killed about 1,200 individuals, in line with Israeli officers.

To facilitate extensions of the short-term ceasefire, Sheikh Mohammed stated in a Monetary Occasions interview on Sunday that Hamas would want to find about 40 ladies and youngsters being held in Gaza by different armed teams and gangs within the strip.

Households of the remaining hostages have vowed to maintain up the strain for his or her launch. Ofri Bibas, whose brother Yarden is among the many hostages together with Yarden’s spouse Shiri and their two sons, on Tuesday appealed to the truce negotiators to safe the household’s freedom.

Though Bibas’s 10-month-old nephew Kfir is the youngest hostage remaining in captivity, she stated her household had been knowledgeable that the youngsters weren’t on the record of hostages to be freed on Tuesday.

“We name upon the Israeli authorities and Qatar and Egypt . . . to do no matter they will, to incorporate our household [ . . . ] on this deal and to launch them as quickly as potential,” Bibas advised a press convention.

The truce includes Hamas releasing teams of Israeli ladies and youngsters held hostage in Gaza day-after-day, in alternate for Israeli prisons releasing Palestinian ladies and youngsters who’ve been sentenced or are in detention.

Foreigners, together with individuals from Thailand and the Philippines, have additionally been launched by Hamas through the truce underneath separate agreements.

The deal additionally includes stepping up desperately wanted help deliveries by way of Rafah, the only functioning border crossing with the besieged Gaza Strip.

Dwelling to 2.3mn individuals, Gaza has largely been reduce off from provides for the reason that preventing began, making a mounting humanitarian disaster. The UN says 1.8mn individuals have been pressured to flee their properties and greater than 1mn are sheltering in under-equipped UN services, together with faculties.

The ferocity of the Jewish state’s retaliatory air marketing campaign and floor invasion, which has levelled swaths of the densely populated space and hit faculties and hospitals, had sparked worldwide requires a ceasefire. Palestinian officers say 14,800 individuals have been killed in Gaza within the Israeli offensive.