Hamas sending team to Cairo for update on cease-fire talks

Hamas said a delegation will travel to Cairo on Saturday evening to receive an update on negotiations aimed at achieving a cease-fire in Gaza.

In a statement, Hamas spokesman Izzat Al-Rishq said the team, led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya, is traveling “at the invitation of the mediators in Egypt and Qatar.” He confirmed Hamas’s readiness to implement the terms agreed upon in July, based on a declaration from U.S. President Joe Biden and a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Israeli negotiators, led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, were in Egypt’s capital on Friday in the latest effort to craft a truce in the war, now into its 11th month. They’ve since departed. Cease-fire talks may begin on Sunday but that could still change, an Israeli official said on Friday. Hamas won’t directly participate in the talks, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a senior official who wasn’t identified.

Before then, Mossad’s David Barnea was expected to hold discussions with Egyptian authorities about the war and Israeli forces’ control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, according to Israeli officials.

Al-Rishq said Hamas “calls for pressure on the occupation” and obligating it to implement the agreed-to terms.

The Cairo round will be the latest in a monthslong effort to pause or end the war that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel, during which the group killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage.

Israel’s subsequent air and ground offensive on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties.

On the table in Cairo is a proposal backed by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar that provides for a phased cessation of hostilities, the release of hostages held by Hamas, the freeing of many Palestinians in Israeli jails, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from areas of Gaza.

One key point of tension is over Israel wanting to keep troops stationed along the strategic Philadelphi corridor, the southern portion of Gaza that runs along the border with Egypt, to prevent arms smuggling. Hamas opposes that, while Egypt is also wary of Israeli troops remaining.

Another sticking point is that Hamas — designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union — wants a truce to amount to a permanent end to the war, while Israel says it needs to retain the right to restart fighting to achieve its aim of destroying the group.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes were reported in southern Gaza on Saturday. Nasser Hospital reported receiving a total of 33 bodies from three strikes in and around the city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.